Systems and methods for providing external content in a messaging interface

ABSTRACT

Described herein is a computer implemented method for displaying a dynamic content item in a chat interface running on a client device. The method comprises receiving, from a collaboration platform, a dynamic content item descriptor which defines the dynamic content item and a content provider that is configured to provide dynamic data for the dynamic content item; receiving, from the content provider, dynamic data; and displaying the dynamic content item with the dynamic data in an area of the chat interface that is distinct from a messaging area of the chat interface.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialthat is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever. Copyright © 2015-2016 Atlassian Pty Ltd.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Aspects of the present disclosure are directed to collaborationplatforms, and in particular to collaboration platforms that provideinstant messaging functionality.

BACKGROUND

The developments described in this section are known to the inventors.However, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that anyof the developments described in this section qualify as prior artmerely by virtue of their inclusion in this section, or that thosedevelopments are known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Many modern workplaces are increasingly encouraging employeecollaboration. Such collaboration relies on effective communicationamong co-workers. Various tools are available to assist withcollaboration efforts, such as collaboration platforms that facilitateinstant messaging (IM) between users, either as a complement to email oras its replacement. Instant messaging applications are also used bygroups of people to enable communication for social purposes.

In order to increase functionality of collaboration platforms can beintegrated with other systems or services by the use of integrations(also referred to as plug-ins or add-ons). For example, somecollaboration platforms let users to subscribe to various third partyapplications or create their own proprietary applications to add intotheir groups.

The integrated applications/services may, amongst other things, beconfigured to contribute to chat rooms by pushing notifications andanswer queries. For instance, whenever an event pertinent to the groupoccurs, the third party application may publish a message in the group'schat room. This can be useful when events occur occasionally or when thegroup subscribes to a few applications. However, when groups subscribeto multiple such integrations or when events occur more frequently, thenumber of messages received by users may quickly become overwhelming.This reduces the usefulness of the messages and, in fact, the instantmessaging system as a whole as chat rooms can quickly become inundatedwith messages from both human and programmatic users.

SUMMARY

The appended claims may serve as a summary of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary collaboration networkaccording to aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a message passing diagram illustrating a process ofcommunicating a message in an instant messaging system.

FIG. 3 is a screenshot of an exemplary chat interface including adynamic content item area according to aspects of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 4 illustrates exemplary dynamic content items displayed in thedynamic content item area of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is an example integration descriptor of an integration whichprovides a dynamic content item according to aspects of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 6 is a message passing diagram illustrating an exemplary processfor displaying dynamic content items in a chat interface.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method for forwarding anintegration descriptor defining a dynamic content item from acollaboration platform to a client.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by aclient for displaying dynamic content items in a chat interface.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by acontent provider for forwarding dynamic data of a dynamic content itemto a client.

FIG. 10 is a message passing diagram illustrating an exemplary methodfor updating dynamic data of a dynamic content item according to aspectsof the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by acontent provider in forwarding updated dynamic data to a collaborationplatform.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by acollaboration platform for forwarding updated dynamic data from acontent provider to a client.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by aclient for rendering updated dynamic data in a dynamic content item.

FIG. 14 is a screenshot of an exemplary chat interface illustratingconditional controls according to aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example integration descriptor of an integrationwhich provides a conditional control according to aspects of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 16 is a message passing diagram illustrating an exemplary methodfor displaying conditional controls in a chat interface.

FIG. 17 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by acollaboration platform for forwarding an integration descriptor defininga conditional control to a client.

FIG. 18 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by aclient for displaying a conditional control in a chat interface.

FIG. 19 is a message passing diagram illustrating an exemplaryclient-initiated integration synchronization process.

FIG. 20 is flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by aclient to synchronize integrations installed on the client with acollaboration platform.

FIG. 21 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by acollaboration platform to synchronize integrations installed on aclient.

FIG. 22 is a message passing diagram illustrating an exemplaryserver-initiated integration synchronization process.

FIG. 23 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by acollaboration platform to synchronize integrations installed on aclient.

FIG. 24 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method performed by aclient to synchronize integrations installed on the client.

FIG. 25 is a block diagram of an exemplary computing system with whichvarious embodiments of the present disclosure may be used.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerousspecific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however,that the present invention may be practiced without these specificdetails. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shownin block diagram form in order to avoid unnecessary obscuring.

The description follows the following outline:

1. Overview

-   -   1.1 Example System Architecture    -   1.2 General Collaboration Network Operations

2. Dynamic content items

-   -   2.1 Context    -   2.2 Implementation        -   2.2.1 Installing Integrations and Displaying Dynamic Content            Items            -   2.2.1.1 Collaboration Platform Operation            -   2.2.1.2 Client Operation            -   2.2.1.3 Content provider Operation        -   2.2.2 Process for updating dynamic content of dynamic            content items            -   2.2.2.1 Content provider operation            -   2.2.2.2 Collaboration platform operation            -   2.2.2.3 Client operation    -   2.3 Clauses

3. Conditional controls

-   -   3.1 Context    -   3.2 Implementation        -   3.2.1 Process for Rendering Conditional controls            -   3.2.1.1 Collaboration Platform Operation            -   3.2.1.2 Client Operation    -   3.3 Clauses

4. Integration Synchronization

-   -   4.1. Context    -   4.2. Implementation        -   4.2.1 Client-initiated Integration Synchronization            -   4.2.1.1 Client Operation            -   4.2.1.2 Collaboration Platform Operation        -   4.2.2 Server-initiated Integration Synchronization            -   4.2.2.1 Collaboration Platform Operation            -   4.2.2.2 Client Operation    -   4.3 Clauses

5. Hardware overview

1. Overview

A collaboration platform typically enables social networkingcapabilities. One such capability is instant messaging (or simplymessaging) which allows users to share information.

To support messaging, a collaboration platform may provide chat clientsthat run on users' computing devices. A chat client renders one or morechat interfaces in which users can receive messages from other users,send messages to other users, and view information about the userscommunicating in that interface.

A chat interface may correspond to a particular chat room (or simplyroom) the user has subscribed to/is a member of Generally speaking, aroom is a user interface that includes two or more members (i.e. usersof the collaboration platform) that are connected via a shared interest,such as a common project, a common team, or a common extracurricularactivity. A chat client can support multiple rooms that may havedifferent members depending on the room interest. Users can createrooms, join rooms or invite particular users to their rooms.Furthermore, rooms can be public (i.e., open to anyone to join) orprivate (open to only certain people). Whenever the user wishes toparticipate in a particular room (e.g. to read and/or post messages),the user can select that room, which causes the client to render thecorresponding chat interface for that room. The rendered chat interfacetypically displays the most recent messages exchanged between themembers of the room, allows the user to view historical messages postedto the room, and displays information re the members/participants of theroom (e.g. who the members are and their current status—online, offline,away, etc.).

Aspects of the present disclosure are related to collaboration platformsthat support integrations (which may also be referred to as add-ons orplug-ins). One example of such a collaboration platform is HipChat whichis commercially available from Atlassian Pty Ltd. Although reference toHipChat is made in this disclosure, the features and techniquesdescribed herein can be applied to any other collaboration platform orsystem which provides a messaging capability.

Specifically, according to aspects of the present disclosure, thecollaboration platform 102 allows users to add integrations in theirchat interfaces. An integration may be added in the chat interface ofall users within an organization (a global integration), or in chatinterfaces of specific rooms. As described in detail below, integrationsmay operate to provide one or more user interface (UI) extensions. Thepresent disclosure describes the installation of integrations, thesynchronization of integrations, and integrations which provide thefollowing UI extensions: dynamic content items (and related content) andconditional controls.

A dynamic content item depicts information about an underlying system orservice which the integration integrates with. The dynamic content itemis displayed in a manner that makes it distinct from the messages beingexchanged in the chat room (e.g. in a dynamic content item area that isseparate to/distinct from a messaging area). This allows integrations topresent users with summary and/or other information with respect to theunderlying system/service in a way that does not rely on notificationsin the actual chat dialogue, which can be missed by a user and/ordifficult to find at a time after the actual notification has beenposted.

Conditional controls allow integrations to surface potentially usefulcontrols for users to allow users to perform certain actions on messagesor objects directly from a chat room. The conditional controls are basedon certain conditions which operate to present users with controlsrelevant to the content in the chat interface.

1.1 Example System Architecture

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary collaboration network 100 in whichaspects of the present disclosure may be implemented.

The collaboration network 100 includes a collaboration platform 102 incommunication with clients 104 (in this instance clients 104 a, 104 b,104 c, and 104 d), and content providers 106 (in this instance 106 a and106 b). While only four clients and two content providers are depictedin FIG. 1, it will be appreciated that in an actual implementation thecollaboration platform 102 can support many more clients 104 and contentproviders 106.

The collaboration platform 102, clients 104, and content providers 106communicate with each other directly or indirectly through one or morecommunications networks 120. For example, the clients 104 maycommunicate with the collaboration platform 102 through a local areanetwork (LAN) of an enterprise in one embodiment. In this case thecollaboration platform 102 may be implemented as an on-premises solutionin which the collaboration platform 102 and computing devices 116 areassociated with the same business enterprise. In another embodiment,network 120 may represent a public internetwork and the collaborationplatform 102 may be located off-premises with respect to anorganization, such as in a shared data center or cloud computingfacility. Similarly, the content providers 106 may communicate with thecollaboration platform via a local or public communication network andwith the clients via the same network or a different local communicationnetwork or public communication network.

Each client 104 is a software application that accesses a collaborationserver application made available by the collaboration platform 102.Each client 104 is hosted on client computing device 116 (or electronicdevice). Client device 116 may be any suitable device, for example amobile device (e.g. a tablet or mobile phone), a portable device (suchas laptop computer), or any other computing device (e.g. a desktopcomputer). A client 104 includes instructions and data stored in thememory (e.g. non-transient compute readable media) of the computingdevice 116 on which the client is installed/run. These instructions areexecuted by the processor of the computing device 116 to perform variousfunctions as described herein. By way of example, some functionsperformed by the client 104 include rendering chat interfaces, renderingcontent within the chat interfaces, allowing users to post messages tochat rooms, and synchronizing data stored in the memory of the computingdevice with data stored in the collaboration platform.

A client 104 may be implemented in various ways. For example, a client104 may be web browser application (such as, for example, Chrome,Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera) which accesses the collaborationplatform 102 via an appropriate uniform resource locator (URL) andcommunicates with the collaboration platform via general world-wide-webprotocols (e.g. HTTP, HTTPS, FTP). In this case the client web browserapplication is configured to request, render and display chat interfacesthat conform to a markup language such as HTML, XML or extensions, andmay be capable of internally executing browser-executable code such asJAVASCRIPT, or other forms of code. Alternatively, a client 104 may be aspecific application programmed to communicate with the collaborationplatform 102 using defined application programming interface (API)calls.

A content provider 106 creates or provides integrations which can beinstalled by clients 104. Integrations monitor or plug into underlyingservices or applications provided by content (or service) providers.Generally speaking, an integration may provide a mechanism for aservice/content provider to communicate information directly to a chatinterface and/or allow a user to perform one or more functions offeredby an underlying application/system (provided by the service/contentprovider) directly from the chat interface. An integration mayfacilitate integration with any desired system or application, forexample a stock exchange system, a weather bureau system, applicationbuilding software, a service desk system, a file management system, etc.

As one specific example, an integration may integrate with a socialmedia system (e.g. Facebook® or Twitter®). In this case the integrationmay allow the social media service to communicate directly with theclient, for example to publish content regarding the social mediacontent in a chat interface. Such an integration may also (oralternatively) allow a user of a chat interface to directly performvarious functions made available by the social media system through thechat interface (e.g. to post content from a particular chat roomdirectly to a particular social media account).

In a further example, an integration may integrate with an issuetracking system (such as Jira, commercially available from Atlassian PlyLtd). In this case, the integration may allow the issue tracking systemto post events/information (e.g. new issues being logged, issue statuschanging etc.) directly to a particular chat room. The integration mayalso (or alternatively) allow a user of a chat interface to performoperations offered by the issue tracking system directly from the chatinterface (e.g. to create an issue, change an issue status, assign anissue to a particular person etc.).

According to aspects of the present disclosure, collaboration platform102 (and clients 104) are configured to enable content providers 106 todefine UI extensions in the form of dynamic content items for display byclients 104, and to provide dynamic data for display in those dynamiccontent items. Dynamic content items can be used, for example, toprovide aggregate information about the underlying service orapplication in a readily viewable summarized format. For instance, inthe example of the social media integration mentioned above, the contentprovider may provide dynamic data for a dynamic content item whichdisplays a summary of the number of unread posts in the group's socialmedia account, the number of positive or negative posts in the group'ssocial media account, and/or any other such summarized information.

Furthermore, the collaboration platform 102 (and clients 104) may beconfigured to enable a content provider 106 to generate related contentfor display by a client 104, the related content being related to adynamic content item and providing additional information with respectto that item. For example, in the case of a dynamic content item thatprovides a summary of the number of negative posts in a group's socialmedia account, the content provider 106 may create related contentincluding a list of the negative posts and their senders.

In some aspects, collaboration platform 102 (and clients 104) are also(or alternatively) configured to enable content providers 106 to defineUI extensions in the form of conditional controls that can be invokedfrom a chat interface. For instance, a content provider 106 may providedata for conditional controls, which are offered to a user by the client104 based on fulfilment of certain conditions. For instance, a contentprovider 106 may provide data for a conditional control that isdisplayed when the content of a message in a chat interface matches apredetermined string or phrase.

Content providers 106 may create integrations which define UI extensionsusing any appropriate programming language and web framework. Tointegrate these UI extensions with the collaboration platform 102, acontent provider 106 may provide an integration descriptor to thecollaboration platform 102, the integration descriptor includinginformation in respect of the integration as well as details withrespect to any UI extensions—i.e. any dynamic content items, relatedcontent, and conditional controls. In one example, the information isforwarded in an integration descriptor that is created using theJavaScript Objection Notation (JSON) format. It will be appreciated thatany other format may be utilized for creating the information or itsintegration descriptor. For example, Extensible Markup Language (XML)may be utilized without departing from the scope of the presentdisclosure.

The collaboration platform 102 allows users 118 to send messages to eachother, join/create groups, transfer files, participate in audio/videocalls, and the like through the clients 104. Further, the collaborationplatform 102 is configured to connect content providers 106 with clients104, allowing content providers 106 to deliver integrations, dynamiccontent items, related content, and conditional controls to the clients104. To that end, the collaboration platform 102 includes acommunication server 108, an application programming interface (API)server 112 and an integration server 114. Where clients 104 are hostedon mobile computing devices 116, the collaboration platform 102 alsoincludes a proxy server 110. In addition to these servers, the platform102 may also include application programs, libraries, APIs or othersoftware elements that implement the features and functions that arefurther described herein. For instance, the collaboration platform 102may include a database 115 for storing information about integrations(including any dynamic content items, related content, and conditionalcontrols), different chat rooms created by users, integrations installedin rooms, clients connected to the collaboration platform 102, user IDs,and so on.

The communication server 108 is configured to offer services requiredfor real time communications, such as message handling and routing,presence detection, security and authorization. When the communicationserver 108 handles messages between different clients 104, it uses aninstant messaging protocol, such as Extensible Messaging and PresenceProtocol (XMPP). It will be appreciated that any other instant messagingprotocol such as Zephyr Notification Service, TOX, or Session InitiationProtocol (SIP) may be used instead without departing from the scope ofthe present disclosure.

The proxy server 110 is configured to maintain dedicated connectionswith active clients 104. ‘Active clients’ as used herein, refers toclients that are involved in a chat session with one or more users andhave at least one open chat interface. In one embodiment, the proxyserver 110 may utilize bidirectional-streams over synchronous HTTP(BOSH) transport protocol for communicating with the communicationserver 102 and the clients 104. The proxy server is also configured toforward the connection information to the communication server 108,which in turn maintains a connections data structure (e.g., in the formof a connections table) in the database 115. The connections tablestores the persistent connections of the active clients. Table Aillustrates an exemplary connections table that stores the connectionsof active clients.

TABLE A Connections table Client identifier Proxy connection 623916 2269318 5 287639 6 . . . . . .

The API server 112 is configured to provide an interface between theclients 104 and the collaboration platform 102 and between the contentproviders 106 and the collaboration platform 102. Specifically, the APIserver 112 allows the clients and content providers to communicate withthe collaboration platform over open web protocols such as (HTTPS, REST,and JWT). In some aspects the API server 112 receives update,installation or uninstallation requests from clients 104 and receivesintegration information from content providers 106. The API server 112is configured to forward these requests and information to theintegration server 114 or the communication server 108. In oneembodiment, the API server 112 is based on the Representational StateTransfer (REST) architectural style. Alternatively, it may be based onthe Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) architecture.

The routines, protocols and tools that content providers can utilize togenerate integration information can be found in the applicationlibraries and API's hosted by the collaboration platform 102. The API'smay be released as part of a software development kit (SDK) or as anopen API published on the Internet.

The integration server 114 is configured to receive data or requestsfrom the API server 112 and respond to these requests by forwarding datato the communication server 108. To facilitate this, the integrationserver 114 is configured to store integration information in thedatabase 115, for example in an integration data structure. In certainembodiments, the integration data structure is a table which stores, foreach integration, a unique identifier (e.g. a key) for the integration,an integration descriptor providing details of the integration and itscapabilities.

Table B below shows one example of an integration data structure (inthis case an integration table):

TABLE B Example integration data structure Integration key Integrationdescriptor Integration 1 <descriptor of int. 1> Integration 2<descriptor of int. 2> Integration 3 <descriptor of int. 3> . . . . . .

As described in further detail below, a given integration descriptor mayinclude multiple UI extension descriptors, each defining a UI extension(e.g. a dynamic content item, conditional control, or other UIextension). In certain implementations, each UI extension descriptorincluded in an integration descriptor is extracted and stored separatelyin a UI extension data structure. This may be instead of or in additionto storing the integration descriptor as a single entity (as shown inTable B above). One example of a UI extension data structure is shown inTable C below:

TABLE C Example UI extension data structure Integra- Unique tionExtension Extension ID Key Name Type Descriptor URL 1 Integra-A'sIntegration1 Dynamic <extension <URL> tion 1 content item descriptor>2 Integra- A'sIntegration1 Conditional <extension <URL> tion 1 controldescriptor> 3 Integra- B'sIntegration1 Dynamic <extension <URL> tion 2content item descriptor> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The integration server 114 is also configured to store chat roominformation in the database 115, for example in a chat room datastructure. In certain embodiments, the room data structure is a roomtable in which information with respect to at least the live chat roomsis stored. In one example, for each live chat room this informationincludes, for example, a unique room identifier, who the owner of theroom is, and the type of room (e.g. public/private). Table D belowprovides one example of a room data structure (in this case a table) forstoring details with respect to chat rooms:

TABLE D Example room data structure Room identifier Room owner Room type123 aaa Public 456 aaa Private 789 aaa Private . . . . . . . . .

The integration server 114 also maintains associations between rooms andusers in order to track, for example, which users are members of whichrooms (are also needed by the communications server 108 and the APIserver 112). These associations can be very transient as users canfrequently join or leave rooms. Table E provides one example of a datastructure for this purpose, in this case a room/user table whichmaintains a row for each unique room/user pairing:

TABLE E Example room/user data structure Room identifier User identifier123 aaa 123 bbb 123 ccc 456 aaa 456 ddd . . . . . .

The integration server 114 also maintains associations between rooms andintegrations in order to track which integrations have been installed inwhich rooms. Table F provides an example of a data structure whichrecords which integrations have been installed in which rooms, in thiscase a room/integration table which maintains a row for each uniqueroom/user pairing.

TABLE F Example room/integration data structure Room identifierIntegration key 123 Integration 1 456 Integration 1 456 Integration 6[None] Integration 3 (indicating global room) . . . . . .

In the example of Table F, the data structure includes an entry withouta room identifier, which is treated as indicating that the associatedintegration is globally installed (i.e. in all rooms). In alternativeembodiments a particular room identifier may be reserved to indicate aglobally installed integration.

By querying these tables the collaboration platform 102 can easilydetermine: which users are members of a particular room; which rooms aparticular user is a member of; which integrations are installed in aparticular room (and/or which UI extensions are installed in aparticular room); and which rooms a particular integration is installedin (and/or which rooms a particular UI extension is installed in).Furthermore, if a UI extension data structure is used, queries can alsobe run to determine all UI extensions provided by a given integration,all integrations that support a particular UI extension type, etc.

As discussed below, in certain embodiments integration tokens are usedto assist with client synchronization. An integration token isassociated with a particular integration and provides a uniqueidentifier for a particular version of that integration. The integrationtoken stored by the collaboration platform 102 at a given time reflectsthe current version of that integration. Integration tokens are storedand associated with a given integration in an appropriate datastructure. For example, integration tokens may be stored as a field ofan integration data structure (e.g. a field of an integration datastructure such as the example shown in Table B above), or in a dedicatedintegration token data structure as shown in Table G below. The datastructure storing the integration token may be stored in database 115, aRedis cache, or in an alternative location accessible to thecollaboration platform.

TABLE G Example integration token data structure Integration identifierIntegration token Integration 1 f3846du3 . . . Integration 2 h2983gu3 .. . Integration 3 g2631by8 . . . . . . . . .

As also discussed below, room tokens are also used in certainembodiments to assist with client synchronization. A room token isassociated with a particular room and provides a unique identifier withrespect to the integration state of a given room: i.e. the particularintegrations and particular versions of those integrations that areinstalled in that room. The room token stored by the collaborationplatform 102 at a given time reflects the current integration state ofthe room. Room tokens are stored and associated with a given room in anappropriate data structure. For example, room tokens may be stored as afield of a room data structure (e.g. a field of a room data structuresuch as the example shown in Table D above), or in a dedicated roomtoken data structure as shown in Table H below. The data structurestoring the room token may be stored in database 115, a Redis cache, orin an alternative location accessible to the collaboration platform.

TABLE H Example room token data structure Room identifier Room token 123a38462ghy . . . 974 b38462bcd . . . [None] b87382cde . . . (indicatingglobal room) . . . . . .

While example data structures have been provided, it will be appreciatedthat alternative data structures could be used which include additional,fewer, or alternative fields. Moreover, the data stored by the exampledata structures may be stored across additional or fewer linked datastructures (e.g. a relational database) or, indeed, in a single datastructure (e.g. a single table).

One specific example of a collaboration platform 102 is described above.The following description describes embodiments and features withrespect to this particular example, but alternative collaborationplatforms may be used. For example, the functions provided by the commserver 108, proxy server 110, API server 112, integration server 114,and database 115 may be provided by a single application (or softwaresuite) running on a single physical computing device, a singleapplication (or software suite) running on multiple physical computingdevices, multiple applications running on a single physical computingdevice, or multiple applications running on multiple physical computingdevices. Accordingly, where processing is described as being performedby a particular component of the exemplary collaboration system 102 itcould equally be described (and should be read as describing) processingbeing performed by the collaboration system 102.

1.2 General Collaboration Network Operations

This section describes the general manner in which the collaborationplatform 102 facilitates messaging between clients 104.

As described previously, a function of the collaboration platform 102 isto allow users to communicate with one another using instant messages.Via a client 104, a user can start a conversation with one or morepeople—e.g. by selecting a person from a list of available people, byentering an existing chat room, or by creating a new chat room. Based onthis selection, the client 104 renders a chat interface on a display ofthe device 116. Using this interface, the user can create a message(e.g., by typing into an input field/control) and send the message(e.g., by activating a send control). This, in effect, sends the messageto all the other active participants in the chat group. When a user is amember of a chat room that receives a message (sent by another user orservice), the client 104 of that user's device 106 alerts the user tothe new message by rendering a chat interface to display the message tothe user or by rendering the message in an already open chat interface.

FIG. 2 illustrates this typical process 200 of “sending” a message 202.In this example, message 202 is sent from user 204 a in pre-exiting chatgroup 206, which users 204 a, 204 c, and 204 d are members of. Themethod 200 commences when the user 204 a opens the chat interfacecorresponding to the chat group 204 in the client 104 a, creates, andsends a message.

Once user 204 a sends the message, it is transmitted from the clientdevice 104 a to the proxy server 110, via the communication network 120(indicated by arrow 210). In some cases clients 104 may maintain TCPconnections directly with the proxy server 110. In other cases, clientsmay connect with the proxy server 110 using XMPP over HTTP, in whichcase clients 104 connect to the proxy server 110 via a BOSH server (notshown). The proxy server 110 communicates the message 202 to thecommunication server 108 (indicated by arrow 212).

The communication server 108, in turn, retrieves a chat room id from themessage, and retrieves information about the users in the chat room(e.g., from the connections table). The communication server 108 alsoretrieves information regarding the persistent connections of therecipients' clients with the proxy server 110 from the database 115.Subsequently, the communication server 108 forwards the message 202 tothe identified connections of the proxy server 110 (indicated by arrows214), which in turn communicates the message to the clients 104 c and104 d through the persistent connections (indicated by arrows 216).

During communication, the proxy server 110 maintains dedicated openchannels with the client devices 104 a, 104 c, and 104 d. However, whenthe communication server 108 detects that a user is no longer an activeuser for the room (e.g. as the user has closed their chatinterface/client 104 or disconnected from the collaboration platform102), the communication server 108 instructs the proxy server 110 todisconnect the dedicated communication channels with the relevantclient.

2. Dynamic Content Items

As outlined above, aspects of the present invention enable UI extensionsin the form of dynamic content items. Dynamic content items can bedefined and updated by content providers 106 and provide a means fordisplaying aggregate (or other) information about an underlying servicein a chat interface. A content provider 106 may configure differentdynamic content items for different groups/rooms based on the context ofthe group/room. Similarly, content providers may be configured to createdifferent dynamic content items for different users. Global dynamiccontent items may also be created for all users of an organization.

2.1 Context

In various embodiments, the techniques herein address problems that theinventors have identified in the way content providers communicate withclients in conventional collaboration platforms. In known systems, whenan integration is installed in a chat room, the integration pushesnotifications informing the group each time an event occurs. Thesenotifications are displayed as messages from the content providerswithin a messaging area of the chat interface.

This technique of displaying notifications can often be problematic orcumbersome. Consider the example where a chat group in an IT company hasinstalled an application-building integration. In the traditionalnotification approach, the application-building integration would sendnotifications to the chat group every time a build has failed orsucceeded. If the user wishes to know the current status of a particularapplication being built, the user would have to search through theentire chat history to identify the message relating to that build.

Similarly, consider the example where a chat group has installed anincident reporting integration. In this case, the integration maydisplay notifications whenever an incident status changes. This can behelpful if the status of incidents changes occasionally or if the userreligiously follows a conversation in their chat group. However, if thatis not the case, a user would be unable to determine how many incidentsare open at any given time or drill down into the details of the openincidents using conventional integrations.

Furthermore, given the nature of typical chat interfaces only a certainnumber of messages can be displayed on screen at a given time. As newmessages are received old messages move (for example) further up thescreen until they are eventually off screen. As such, if a user receivesan important message while they are not paying attention to the chatinterface, and several more messages are received before the userreturns attention to the interface, the important message may well beoff-screen before even being seen by the user.

2.2 Implementation

To overcome one or more of the issues identified above, aspects of thepresent disclosure provide a collaboration platform 102 that enablesdynamic content items to be generated and displayed to users. Dynamiccontent items can be used, for example, to display aggregate serviceinformation instead of piecemeal notifications. Furthermore, the dynamiccontent items are displayed in an area of a chat interface other thanthe messaging area, thereby allowing users to readily view the aggregateinformation at any time without scrolling through the message history.

In certain embodiments, a user can select a dynamic content item inorder to display additional related information with respect to thatdynamic content item (i.e. drill down into the dynamic content item).The additional information is provided by a content provider 106.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary chat interface 300 in which dynamiccontent items are displayed. The chat interface 300 is displayed on adisplay of a client device 116 by a client 104. The chat interface 300includes a messaging area 302 that displays received messages (e.g.messages exchanged between members of the group and messages receivedfrom integrated systems/services), an input area 304 where a user cancreate a message, and a dynamic content item area 306 that displaysdynamic content items from content providers 106 that the group isintegrated with.

It will be appreciated that the positions of the various areas of thechat interface 300 may vary in different implementations. Further, thechat interface 300 may display more or less information withoutdeparting from the scope of the present disclosure. For example, thechat interface 300 may also include an information area 308 thatdisplays information about the members of the chat group, the status ofthe members of the chat group, a list of chat groups that the user is apart of, and the like. As can clearly be seen, in the illustratedembodiment the dynamic content item area 306 is distinct from themessaging area 302, thus ensuring that the information displayed in thedynamic content item area 306 is visible/is not obscured by themessaging area 302.

In the present embodiment, dynamic content items have defined elementswhich can be used by content providers to display both static anddynamic data. By way of example, the defined elements for a dynamiccontent item may be icons, lozenges (a UI element with defined colorsfor denoting particular meanings/statuses), and labels (of a particularformat, such as HTML). The actual content of these items (i.e. theparticular icon, particular lozenge, or particular label) can bedynamically defined by the content provider.

Furthermore, dynamic content items may have a defined format. As onespecific example, dynamic content items may be defined to include one ormore of: a static icon (defined in the integration descriptor), a label(which can be dynamically defined/updated by the content provider), anda status (which may be an icon or a lozenge and which can be dynamicallyupdated by the content provider).

FIG. 4 illustrates some example dynamic content item formats. Theseexample dynamic content items are displayed in the dynamic content itemarea 306. Dynamic content items 402, 404, 406 and 408 display dynamicsummary information that changes as the state of underlying informationmonitored/maintained by a content provider (e.g. the application thatthe integration integrates with) changes.

Dynamic content item 402 includes a static icon 403 and a label 405. Inthis example, static icon 403 shows a smiley face and the label 405states “everything is awesome.” The icon 403 is defined by theintegration descriptor and label 405 is dynamically defined by thecontent provider 106 (and as such may be altered by the content provideras desired, for example when the underlying conditions change). Forexample, if the underlying service encounters some errors, the label 405may change to state, “some things are in error”, “errors found” orsomething similar.

Dynamic content item 404 includes a static icon 403, a label 405, and astatus (in this case another icon 407). Static icon 403 displays thelogo of the content provider or underlying application (in this exampleTwitter®). Label 405 is a html label providing textual information inrespect of the underlying application. Label 405 includes two portions:a number portion displaying the number of an attribute (“59” in thisexample) and an attribute portion displaying the type of attribute(“Hostile Tweets” in this example). Icon 407 indicates a status, and inthis case is a raincloud. If the number of hostile tweets changes innumber, the number portion of the label is updated, whereas theattribute portion remains unchanged. The icon 407 may also be updated.For example, if the number of hostile tweets increases, the rain cloudmay be replaced by a thundercloud, or an alternative graphic indicatingseverity. Alternatively, if the number of hostile tweets reduces, theraincloud may change into a white cloud or into a sun icon, for example.If the underlying twitter handle attracts more positive tweets thanhostile tweets, the attribute portion of the label 409 may be updated todisplay “positive tweets” instead of “hostile tweets”. It will beunderstood that the label may also be configured to display the numberof hostile and positive tweets together without departing from the scopeof the present disclosure.

Dynamic content item 406 includes a static icon 407, a label 405(indicating a total number of builds), and a lozenge 411. Lozenge 411highlights the status of the underlying service for quick recognition.Specific colors may denote meanings that users can learn and recognizeto become more efficient. For example, a green colored lozenge mayindicate a positive status whereas a red colored lozenge may be used toindicate a negative status. In some aspects lozenges can revealadditional information on click or on hover. In dynamic content item406, lozenge 411 has the text “all good” indicating that theapplications are progressing well. Lozenge 411 could, for example, bedisplayed in green to reflect the positive status.

Dynamic content item 408 includes a static icon 407, and a label 405.The icon 407 reveals the logo of the underlying service. The label 405includes two portions: a number portion and an attribute portion. Theattribute portion depicts the attribute that is being monitored (“bugs”in this case) and the number portion depicts the number of bugs found inthe underlying service (“2” in this case).

It will be appreciated that FIG. 4 is provided to highlight that acontent provider may utilize various combinations of defined elements(in this case icons, labels or lozenges) to create a dynamic contentitem. The collaboration platform 102 may, however, offer any otherformats or elements/components for dynamic content items, such asbuttons, charts, badges, avatars, or the like to build aggregateinformation for display as dynamic content items.

In addition to the information that is displayed in a chat interface, adynamic content item may have associated conditions which limit when adynamic content item is rendered and/or who a dynamic content item isrendered for. For example, content providers 106 may add conditions to adynamic content item so that the dynamic content item is only displayedto users of one or more particular types (a guest user, an admin user, aroom owner user). By way of further example, content providers may addconditions to a dynamic content item so that the dynamic content item isonly displayed when particular room conditions are satisfied—e.g. onlywhen a room is a private group. Still further, a dynamic content itemmay include conditions that specify that a dynamic content item isrendered when a value of a particular attribute of the dynamic contentitem meets a certain condition (e.g. the attribute value is greaterthan, less than, or equal to a specified value). For example, a stockmarket dynamic content item may include a dynamic attribute used todisplay the stock price. The content item may be associated with acondition that prevents the dynamic content item from being renderedwhen the stock price is below a threshold value. Similarly, a weatherservice dynamic content item may include a condition that prevents thedynamic content item from being displayed unless the temperature exceedsa threshold value or a weather warning is issued. Any other conditionsmay be specified in the dynamic content item without departing from thescope of the present disclosure.

Once a content provider has initially created a dynamic content item,the content provider may communicate this information to thecollaboration platform 102 in an integration descriptor, via the APIserver 112. The information can include, for example:

1. a name of the dynamic content item,

2. a description of the dynamic content item,

3. a URL endpoint of the dynamic content item,

4. any static data supported by the dynamic content item, such as astatic icon, and

5. any conditions associated with the dynamic content item (ifapplicable).

The URL endpoint is provided so that the client can query this endpointto retrieve dynamic data of the dynamic content item. The integrationdescriptor may also include information about any related contentassociated with the dynamic content item, for example a webpage on whichthe related content is provided.

In certain implementations the collaboration platform 102 may facilitateupdating/changing integration descriptors once they have been provided.This may, for example, be via an API server and associated API functionswhich content providers 106 can access. Via the API server (andappropriate API calls), a content provider 106 can add UI extensions toan integration, remove UI extensions from an integration, and/or updateUI extensions defined in an integration. Where a data structure of UIextensions is maintained (e.g. per the UI extension data structureexample provide in Table C above), the API server can operate to recordany UI extension changes directly in the data structure.

In other embodiments, if a content provider wishes to update anintegration this can be done by uploading an updated integrationdescriptor to the collaboration platform 102.

In some embodiments, the integration descriptor may also includeinformation about the integration that provides the dynamic contentitem. In that case, the descriptor includes the name, description, andweb address of the integration and the capabilities of the integration.Capabilities define the functions the integration can perform, such asrespond to queries, post notifications, display dynamic content items,and so on. The web address is provided so that the client 104 can accessthe integration when required.

One specific example of an integration descriptor for an integrationthat offers a dynamic content item UI extension (and related content) isdepicted in FIG. 5. In this example the integration descriptor 500 isdivided into two portions 502 and 504. Portion 502 provides generalinformation in respect of the integration, including a name, a uniquekey, a description, a homepage URL (which points to a page whereinformation with respect to the integration can be obtained) and a“self” URL (a link that points back to the descriptor 500 itself,allowing the original integration descriptor to be obtained).

Portion 504 of the integrations descriptor 500 defines the capabilitiesof the integration. The integration shown in FIG. 5 supports a dynamiccontent item and related content for the dynamic content item.Accordingly, the capabilities section 504 includes a dynamic contentitem UI extension descriptor 506 and a related content UI extensiondescriptor 508. Not all dynamic content items will have associatedrelated content.

In this particular example, the dynamic content item UI extensiondescriptor 506 includes: name information, defining data that can berendered by a client 104 if the dynamic content item is only to includestatic data (i.e. if no query URL information is provided) or if thedynamic data cannot be retrieved from the query URL for some reason);query URL information, defining an endpoint, such as a REST endpoint,exposed by the integration for dynamic content; a key, defining a stabletechnical identifier that can be used internally to identify theelement; target information, defining a key for any related content(described further below); icon information, defining URL's of a staticicon (if any) to be displayed (in this example two different icon URL'sare specified, one for low resolution and one (indicated by the 2×) forhigh resolution displays); and condition information, defining anyconditions associated with the dynamic content item (discussed furtherbelow).

The related content UI extension descriptor 508 in this exampleincludes: a key, defining a stable identifier for the related content(which can be used by a dynamic content item descriptor as describedabove); a name; a location, defining where the related content is to bedisplayed in the event a user interacts with the dynamic content item(in this case a right sidebar of the chat interface); and a URL,defining where the related content is to be retrieved from.

Integrations may be made available to users in various ways. Forexample, an integration marketplace may be maintained (either by thecollaboration platform 102 or a separate system) which users canbrowse/search for and select integrations for installation. On selectionof a particular integration for installation (either in a particularroom or globally), the collaboration server 102 can retrieve theintegration descriptor for that integration from the relevant contentprovider, process the integration descriptor to retrieve UI extensiondescriptors, and store these (e.g. in database 115), and communicate theUI extension descriptors to the relevant clients 104.

2.2.1 Installing Integrations and Displaying Dynamic Content Items

FIG. 6 illustrates a high level process 600 for installing anintegration at a client 104 and displaying a dynamic content item in achat room.

The process begins when a user selects an integration for installation(either globally or in a particular chat room). This results in theuser's client 104 sending a request to the collaboration platform 102(and, in particular, the API server 112) (indicated by arrow 602).

The API server 112 forwards the request to the integration server 114(indicated by arrow 604).

The integration server 114 retrieves the integration descriptor 500 ofthe requested integration. The integration descriptor 500 may includeseveral UI extension descriptors, each defining a UI extension. In thepresent embodiment, the integration server 114 processes the integrationdescriptor 500 in order to extract individual UI extension descriptorsand store these descriptors separately (e.g. in a UI extension datastructure as described above). The integration server 114 may also storethe entire integration descriptor 500 (e.g. in an integration datastructure as described above).

The integration server 114 also generates integration installationinformation including information regarding the integration (e.g. the UIextension descriptors in respect of the integration), determines therelevant client recipients and forwards the integration installationinformation, along with the identity of the relevant client recipients,to the communication server 108 (indicated by arrow 606).

The communication server 108 then forwards the integration installationinformation to the active clients 104 in the recipient list (indicatedby arrows 608). Communication to the active clients is, in this example,via the proxy server 110. A client 104 receives and stores theintegration installation information, retrieves any dynamic content ofdynamic content item(s) from the content providers (indicated by arrows610), and renders the associated dynamic content item(s) in its chatinterface 300.

This process will be described in detail in the following sections.

In the process described above the integration server processes theintegration descriptor to extract and store individual UI extensiondescriptors. These individual UI extension descriptors are then sent toclients and (as described further below) used to calculate integrationtokens. In alternative embodiments, the integration server 114 mayinstead store the integration descriptor 500 itself, as a whole (i.e.without extracting individual UI extension descriptors), send theintegration descriptor 500 to clients, and use the integrationdescriptor 500 to calculate integration tokens.

2.2.1.1 Collaboration Platform Operation

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary method 700 performed bythe collaboration platform 102 to forward an integration descriptorincluding information about one or more dynamic content items to one ormore clients 104.

At 702, the collaboration platform 102 (and in particular the API server112) receives a request from a client 104 (e.g. client 104 a) to installan integration which defines one or more UI extensions (e.g. anintegration that provides a dynamic content item). The request includesan identifier for identifying the requested integration, e.g. a name,key, or any other unique identifier utilized by the integration server114 to identify the requested integration. In the example shown in FIG.5, the identifier of the integration is key “com.example.myintegration”.The client request further includes information about the user (e.g. auser identifier) and information on where the integration is to beinstalled—e.g. in a particular room or rooms, or globally (i.e. acrossall rooms in the collaboration system instance).

At 704 the API server 112 forwards the request to the integration server114.

At 706, the integration server 114 uses the integration identifier fromthe request to retrieve the integration descriptor for the identifiedintegration. Once received, the integration server 114 processes theintegration descriptor in order to extract and store the UI extensiondescriptor(s) defined therein. Where integration and room tokens areused for client synchronization purposes (as described in further detailbelow), the integration server 114 also calculates an integration tokenfor the integration (and stores this, for example in an integrationtoken data structure as described above) and a room token for the roomin which the integration is to be installed (and stores this, forexample in a room token data structure as described above).

At 708, the integration server 114 generates and stores an associationbetween the integration identified in the request and the room(s)identified in the request. For example, and using the example datastructures described above, this may be achieved by updating theroom/integration data structure to create a record associating the roomidentifier with the integration identifier. The integration server 114also and uses the room identifier to identify the users that are membersof the identified room (e.g. from the integration data structure androom/user data structure).

At 710, the Integration server 114 generates and forwards integrationinstallation information and identifiers for the users who are toreceive the new integration to the communication server 108. In thepresent embodiment, the integration installation information includesthe UI extension descriptors for the UI extensions defined by theintegration. Where tokens are used to facilitate client synchronization(as described further below), the integration installation informationalso includes at least an integration token in respect of theintegration (and, depending on implementation, may also include a newroom token in respect of the room in which the installation has beeninstalled).

At 712, the communication server 108 determines which clients areconnected to the collaboration platform 102 from the connection tableand identifies the persistent connections between those active clientsand the proxy server 110.

At 712, the communication server 108 forwards the integrationinstallation information to each active room member identified throughthe persistent connections. The integration installation information maybe forwarded to non-active clients when they connect to thecollaboration platform 102, as described in detail with reference toFIGS. 19-21.

2.2.1.2 Client Operation

FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary method 800 performed by a client 104 toinstall an integration having one or more UI extensions (e.g. anintegration that defines a dynamic content item) in a particular chatroom. Steps 802 and 804 are performed by a client 104 that selects anintegration to be installed. Steps 806 to 822 are performed by allclients who are members of a chat room to which the integration isadded.

At step 802, a client 104 requests installation of an integration thatdefines one or more UI extensions. As mentioned previously, the user 118may access a list of integrations and select one or more integrationsfrom the list to install globally or in a particular chat room. Anintegration may be selected by clicking on an “add” button, for example.

At 804, the client 104 sends a room identifier of the chat room in whichthe user 204 wishes to add the integration. The identifier(s) areforwarded along with the identifier of the selected integration to theAPI server 112.

At 806, a client 104 receives and processes integration installationinformation from the collaboration system 102. A client 104 receives theintegration installation information if it is a member of a room towhich an integration has been added (this may, though need notnecessarily, include the client 104 that actually sent the integrationrequest).

As described above, the integration installation information includes atleast UI extension descriptors for the UI extension(s) provided by theintegration. Where tokens are used to facilitate client synchronization(as described further below), the integration installation informationalso includes at least an integration token in respect of theintegration (and, depending on implementation, may also include a newroom token in respect of the room in which the installation has beeninstalled). The client 104 retrieves information from the integrationinstallation information and stores it in the memory of the computingdevice 116 on which the client 104 is running.

In some embodiments the client 104 is configured to store allintegrations and their dynamic content items in a single data structure,such as an integration data table. On receiving an integrationdescriptor the client 104 checks to see if the integration alreadyexists in the integration table (e.g., for another chat room). This canbe done, for example, by checking if an integration token received inthe integration installation information matches any integration tokenalready stored at the client 104. If no match is identified, theintegration is not already present. In this case the client 104 extractsthe UI extension descriptor(s) from the integration installationinformation and stores this/these locally. Alternatively, if a tokenmatch is identified the client 104 already has the integration and doesnot need to re-store information from the integration installationinformation. This way, the client avoids duplication of integrationsthat are installed in multiple rooms.

By way of example, Tables I, J and K below illustrate example datastructures in which a client 104 can locally store information inrespect of installed integrations. Alternative data structures could beused. Table I provides an example of a data structure for maintaining anassociation between rooms that the client 104 is a member of andintegrations installed in those rooms:

TABLE I Example room/integration data structure (client) Room identifierIntegration key 123 Integration 1 974 Integration 1 974 Integration 6[None] Integration 3 (indicating global room) . . . . . .

Table J provides an example of a data structure for maintaining anassociation between integrations installed by the client 104 and the UIextension descriptors associated with those integrations:

TABLE J Example UI extension data structure (client) Integration Key UIExtension Type UI Extension Descriptor Integration 1 Dynamic contentitem <UI extension descriptor> Integration 1 Conditional control <UIextension descriptor> Integration 2 Dynamic content item <UI extensiondescriptor> . . . . . . . . .

Table K provides an example of a data structure for maintaining anassociation between integrations and integration tokens (as received inthe integration installation information when tokens are used):

TABLE K Example integration token data structure (client) Integrationidentifier Integration token Integration 1 f3846du3 . . . Integration 2h2983gu3 . . . Integration 3 g2631by8 . . . . . . . . .

In embodiments where room tokens are used and communicated to clients,these may also be stored locally by a given client 104 in a datastructure that maintains associations between rooms and room tokens.Table L below provides one example of such a data structure:

TABLE L Example room token data structure (client) Room identifier Roomtoken 123 a38462ghy . . . 974 b38462bcd . . . [None] b87382cde . . .(indicating global room) . . . . . .

At completion of 806 the integration is installed at the client 104.

At 808, the client retrieves dynamic data of the dynamic content itemfrom the content provider 106. The dynamic content is not provided bythe collaboration platform 102, or by other members of the chat room.Rather, the dynamic content is retrieved directly from the contentprovider 106 (as defined in the dynamic content item UI extensiondescriptor) the first time an integration is installed and every timeafter that when the client 104 reconnects with the collaborationplatform 102. At other times, the content provider 106 may push dynamicdata to active clients 104 (as described in detail in the next section).

To obtain dynamic data, the client 104 retrieves the address of thedynamic data from the descriptor (e.g. the queryURL in descriptor 500).The client 104 then sends a request to the URL to obtain the dynamicdata. The request may include identifiers that indicate the room anduser requesting the information. In some embodiments, the clientretrieves the URL of the integration and the REST endpoint of thedynamic content items from the descriptor and communicates directly withthe content provider 106 using a JSON Web Token (JWT). The JWT mayinclude the room ID, and the user ID of the client 104. This informationis used by the content provider to return the dynamic data to the rightclient 104. In one example, the request may be in the following form:

GET/Dynamic content item/repos?signed_request=ey . . . HTTP/1.1

Origin: https://subdomain.hipchat.com

Host: addon.example.com

In this example, the JWT token is passed in the “signed_request” queryparameter.

In response to the data request, the content provider 106 returns adynamic data update in respect of the dynamic content item. This mayinclude, for example, any dynamic content any metadata applicable to thedynamic content item. In certain embodiments, and by way of exampleonly, the dynamic data is received from the content provider 106 in aJSON document as shown in Table M below:

TABLE M Example dynamic data update Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Date:Mon, 17 Aug 2015 07:15:10 GMT Content-Type: application/json { “label”:{ “type”: “html”, “value”: “<b>4</b> Repositories” }, “status”: {“type”: “lozenge”, “value”: { “label”: “LOCKED”, “type”: “yellow” } },“metadata”: { “customData”: {“customAttr”: “customValue”} } }

In this example, the content provider specifies that a label and astatus (in the form of a lozenge) are to be displayed. The label is ahtml label which has a value of “4 Repositories”. The “status” nodedefines the attributes of the dynamic status, such as: type of statusindicator (i.e., whether it is an icon or a lozenge) and the value ofthe indicator (i.e., what type of icon or lozenge it is). In case thestatus indicator is a lozenge, the value field includes the label andtype of the lozenge that indicate what the text and color of the lozengeis, respectively. In case the status indicator is an icon, the valuefield includes a text to be displayed on the lozenge or a web addressfrom where the icon can be retrieved. In the example JSON documentabove, the status indicator is a lozenge that displayed the text“Locked” in a yellow colored lozenge.

The metadata node includes the data which the conditions defined for thedynamic content item (in the descriptor) operate on. By way of example,a descriptor 500 may define a condition for a dynamic content item asshown in Table N below:

TABLE N Example dynamic content item condition { “condition”:“glance_matches”, “params”: { “metadata”: [ {“attr”: “isConfigured”,“eq”: true} ] } }

The metadata node in the response communicated by the content provider106 may then take a form such as that shown in Table O below:

TABLE O Example metadata node “metadata”: { “isConfigured”: true }

In this case, the dynamic content item would be displayed in the userinterface. Conversely, if there was no metadata, or if “isConfigured”:false, then the dynamic content item would not be displayed.

At 810, the client 104 determines whether the dynamic content item hasany conditions. In the present embodiment, this determination is made byreviewing the JSON document received from the content provider at step806.

If, at 810, the client 104 determines that the dynamic content item doesnot have any conditions, the method proceeds to 812. At 812, the client104 determines whether the dynamic content item has any static data. Inone embodiment, this is determined by parsing the descriptor 500 toidentify any static data, such as a static icon. If static content ispresent, the client 104 renders the dynamic content item in the dynamiccontent item area 306 of the chat interface 300 with the static data anddynamic data, at 814. Alternatively, the client renders the dynamiccontent item with only the dynamic data, at 816. Any known technique maybe utilized to render the dynamic content item without departing fromthe scope of the present disclosure.

If, at 810, the client 104 determines that the dynamic content itemincludes conditions, the method proceeds to 818. At 818, the clientevaluates if the conditions associated with the dynamic content item aremet. For example, if the condition is that the dynamic content item canonly be viewed in a public room, the client may evaluate if the roomidentifier is for a private or public room. Similarly, if a dynamiccontent item condition defines that the dynamic content item can only beviewed by a particular type of user, such as an admin user, the client104 determines whether the user is an admin user. Other conditions mayinclude comparing attribute values with threshold values. It will beappreciated that any other conditions may be configured withoutdeparting from the scope of the present disclosure.

If, at 818, all conditions are met, the method proceeds to 812 todisplay the dynamic data and (if required) any static data as describedabove. Alternatively, if at 818 the conditions are not met, the method800 finishes without rendering any dynamic content items.

In some embodiments, dynamic content items are rendered as or withinteractive items. In this case a user can interact with a dynamiccontent item (e.g. by clicking on or otherwise activating the dynamiccontent item or an element within the dynamic content item) in or orderto display related content. Where a user 204 interacts with a dynamiccontent item, the client 104 retrieves the related content associatedwith the dynamic content item and renders the related content in thechat interface 300. In certain embodiments, on interaction with adynamic content item the client 104 retrieves an address for the relatedcontent from portion 508 of the descriptor 500 and sends a request tothat address. The request may include a JWT including contextualinformation about the request: authorization ID, room ID, user ID, etc.In return, the content provider provides the requested content, which isdisplayed in the location specified in the descriptor 500 (such aswithin a side panel of the chat interface, in a popup widow, or in anexternal page) or in any other predetermined location.

2.2.1.3 Content Provider Operation

FIG. 9 illustrates the method steps performed by the content provider106 to forward dynamic data of a dynamic content item to a client 104.

At 902, the content provider 106 receives a data request from a client104 for dynamic data in respect of a dynamic content item. The datarequest may be received at an exposed REST endpoint. As describedpreviously, with respect to FIG. 8, the request may include a useridentifier, and/or a room identifier.

At 904, the content provider 106 generates or retrieves the requesteddynamic data. Various different methods may be utilized forgenerating/retrieving the dynamic content of the dynamic content item.

For example, if the dynamic content item is provided to display a numberof bugs in a software product, the content provider 106 may review theunderlying issue tracking system to determine the number of bugs thathave been reported for the software. The determined number of bugs maysubsequently be compared with one or more threshold values. If thenumber of bugs is below a certain threshold, the content provider 106may generate the label 409 that states “everything is awesome”, if thenumber of bugs exceeds the threshold but is under a second threshold,the content provider 106 may generate a label 409 that states “somethings are not in order”, and if the number of bugs exceeds the secondthreshold as well, the content provider may generate the label “we aredoomed”.

As a further example, if the dynamic content item is provided to displaysocial media information, the content provider 106 may review the tweetsposted for the chat room's Twitter® handle or against a hashtagassociated with the chat room and determine whether the tweets arefavorable or hostile. Then, depending on how the integration wasprogrammed, the content provider 106 may generate a label with thenumber of hostile and/or favorable tweets and (by comparing the numberof hostile tweets with one or more thresholds), determine which iconshould be used: rain clouds, thunderclouds, white clouds or the sun.

Once the content provider 106 generates/retrieves the values for thedynamic labels, icons or lozenges, the content provider 106 returns aresponse (e.g. a HTTP response) including the dynamic data to theclients 104 at step 906. In one aspect, the response takes the formof/includes a JSON document as described above.

2.2.2 High Level Process—Updating Dynamic Content

The dynamic data of a dynamic content item corresponds to events takingplace in the underlying service. As relevant changes occur in theunderlying service (i.e., changes which the dynamic content item isconfigured to display information on), the dynamic data of the dynamiccontent item should also change. For instance, if a dynamic content itemdisplays a tally of a particular attribute maintained/monitored by theunderlying service, the tally displayed by the dynamic content itemshould increase or decrease each time a relevant event occurs in theunderlying service.

To account for this, the collaboration platform 102 provides a mechanismwhich allows content providers 106 to push dynamic data to clients 104to be rendered in dynamic content items. This is in contrast to theclients 104 requesting dynamic data from content providers 106 asdescribed above with respect to FIGS. 6-8, which occurs when a client104 connects with the collaboration platform or when a new integrationis installed in the client 104.

FIG. 10 is a message passing diagram which provides an overview of anexemplary process 1000 by which the content provider 106 can pushcontent to one or more clients.

Process 1000 commences with a content provider 106 generating andforwarding an update to the API server 112 (indicated by arrow 1002).The update includes updated data for at least one dynamic content itemdefined by an integration. The update also includes the recipients ofthe update. The recipients of the update may be identified in variousways, for example by specifying an entire organization, one or moreparticular chat rooms, and/or one or more particular users in aparticular chat room.

The API server 112 then forwards the dynamic data and recipient list tothe communication server 108 (indicated by arrow 1004). Thecommunication server 108 distributes the updated dynamic content to theconnected recipients (indicated by arrow 1006). And finally, the clients104 receive the updated content (indicated by arrow 1008) and update thechat interface to reflect the updated dynamic content received from thecollaboration platform 102.

The following sections describe this process in detail from theperspective of the content provider, collaboration platform, and theclient.

2.2.2.1 Content Provider Operation

FIG. 11 illustrates an exemplary method 1100 for forwarding updateddynamic data from the content provider 106 to the collaboration platform102.

At 1102, the content provider 106 generates a dynamic data update. Inone example, the update may have the format described with respect toTable M above.

The manner in which the dynamic data updates are generated is dependenton update conditions associated with the dynamic content item to whichthe update relates. For instance, for certain dynamic content items,content providers 106 may set update conditions that definepredetermined intervals at which updates are to be generated (e.g.,every 5 minutes, or every hour, etc.). For other dynamic content items,content providers 106 may set conditions such that an update isgenerated every time the value of a monitored attribute crosses apredetermined threshold. For example, in the case of dynamic contentitem 402 (which provides information on the status of software builds),the content provider 106 may be configured to monitor the number ofbuilds and statuses of those builds to generate an update when thenumber of builds changes or the status of the builds changes (e.g., from“all good” to “not so good”). As a further example, in the case ofdynamic content item 404 (which provides information on the number ofhostile tweets), the content provider 106 may monitor the tweets todetermine their number and disposition, and generate an update when thenumber of tweets changes (to change the number of tweets reported in thedynamic content item) or when the number of hostile tweets exceeds asecond threshold (in order to update the storm cloud icon to indicate ahigher severity).

As described previously, in addition to the updated content which is tobe displayed in the dynamic content item, the update also includes therecipient identifiers in respect of the intended recipients for theupdate. By way of example: if an update is intended for all members ofan organization it may be sent to the API server 112 using a commandsuch as ‘POST/v2/integration/ui’; if an update is intended for allmembers of a particular chat room, it may be sent to the API server 112using a command such as ‘POST/v2/integration/ui/room/{room_id_or_name}’;if an update is intended for a particular user, it may be sent to theAPI server 112 using a command such as‘POST/v2/integration/ui/user/{user_id_or_email}’; if the update isintended for a particular user in a particular chat room, it may be sentto the API server 112 using a command such as‘POST/v2/integration/ui/room/{room_id_or_name}/user/{user_id_or_email}’.

At 1104, the content provider 106 forwards the update to the API server112.

2.2.2.2 Collaboration Platform Operation

FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary method 1200 performed by thecollaboration platform 102 to forward a dynamic data update receivedfrom a content provider 106 to the intended recipients of the update.

At 1202, the API server 112 receives a dynamic data update from thecontent provider 106.

At 1204, the API server 112 forwards the update to the communicationserver 108.

At 1206, the communication server 108 identifies the recipient client(s)104 from the received update and determines whether the recipientclients are active or not. To that end, the communication server 108performs a lookup in the connection table stored in the database 115.The persistent connection nodes of the active recipient clients are alsoretrieved from the connection table at this step.

At 1208, the communication server 108 forwards the dynamic data updateto the persistent connections identified at step 1206, through which thedynamic content item update is forwarded to the clients 104 of theactive recipients. The dynamic data updates are not forwarded toinactive clients. These clients are updated when they next establish aconnection with the collaboration platform 102.

2.2.2.3 Client Operation

As noted above, the dynamic data updates are periodically received byclients 104. FIG. 13 illustrates a method 1300 performed by a client 104on receiving a dynamic data update.

At 1302, a client 104 receives a dynamic data update from thecollaboration platform 102. The update may, for example, have the formatdescribed above.

At 1304, the client 104 determines whether the dynamic content item towhich the received dynamic data update relates has any conditions.

If, at 1304, the dynamic content item does not have any conditions, themethod proceeds to 1306. At 1306 the client 104 updates the relevantdynamic content item by rendering the updated data in the dynamiccontent item (in the dynamic content item area 306 of the chat interface300).

If, at 1304, the dynamic content item being updated includes conditions,the method proceeds to 1308. At 1308, the client 104 evaluates theconditions of the dynamic content item (as described above).

If, at 1304, the conditions are met, the method proceeds to step 1306,where the dynamic content item is rendered with the updated dynamiccontent. If the conditions are not met, the method ends without updatingthe dynamic content item.

2.4 Clauses

Described herein is a computer implemented method for displaying adynamic content item in a chat interface running on a client device, themethod comprising: receiving, from a collaboration platform, a dynamiccontent item descriptor, the dynamic content item descriptor definingthe dynamic content item and a content provider that is configured toprovide dynamic data for the dynamic content item; receiving, from thecontent provider, dynamic data; and displaying the dynamic content itemwith the dynamic data in an area of the chat interface that is distinctfrom a messaging area of the chat interface.

The content provider may be defined by an address. The address may be aURL.

The method may further comprise sending, to the content provider, acontent request comprising at least one of a user identifier, a chatroom identifier, a client identifier, and a dynamic content itemidentifier, and the dynamic data may be received from the contentprovider in response to the content request.

The dynamic content item may comprise a static data element, the staticdata element being defined in the dynamic content item descriptor.

The static data element may be defined by an address from which thestatic data element is retrieved by the client device for display in thedynamic content item.

The dynamic data may comprise aggregate information about an underlyingservice.

The dynamic data may comprise data defining at least one dynamic dataelement for display in the dynamic content item, the at least onedynamic data element being selected from a group comprising: a label; anicon; and a lozenge.

The dynamic content item descriptor may define one or more conditionswhich are evaluated by the client device to determine whether or not todisplay the dynamic content item.

The response from the content provider may further comprise metadata,and the one or more conditions defined by the dynamic content itemdescriptor may be evaluated by the client device with reference to themetadata.

The computer implemented method may further comprise: receiving adynamic data update, the dynamic data update being initiated andgenerated by the content provider and communicated to the client devicevia the collaboration platform; and updating the dynamic content item todisplay data from the dynamic data update.

The computer implemented method may further comprise: receiving, fromthe collaboration platform, a related content descriptor, the relatedcontent descriptor being associated with the dynamic content item anddefining an address from which related content can be retrieved;detecting activation of a displayed dynamic content item; retrieving therelated content from the address defined in the related contentdescriptor; and displaying the related content in the chat interface.

Also described herein is an electronic device configured to operate as aclient to a collaboration platform, the computer processing systemcomprising: one or more processors; a display, a communicationsinterface; and one or more non-transitory computer-readable storagemedia storing sequences of instructions which, when executed by the oneor more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a methodas described in the preceding paragraphs of this section (section 2.4).

Also described herein is non-transient computer readable storagecomprising instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause theprocessor to perform a method as described in the preceding paragraphsof this section (section 2.4).

3. Conditional Controls

As outlined above, aspects of the present invention enable UI extensionsin the form of conditional controls to be defined for display by clients104. Conditional controls are invoked from a chat interface to allowusers to perform various actions. The controls are conditional in thatthey depend on one or more conditions/rules being fulfilled. Theconditions can include contextual conditions, i.e., conditions based onthe content of messages, notifications, dynamic content items, orrelated items, or characteristic conditions, i.e., conditions based on acharacteristic of a message, notification, dynamic content item orrelated item. By way of example, if a message is determined to include alink, a conditional action may be generated to provide a user withoptions of opening the link in the client or opening the link in abrowser. In another example, if a related item displays a negativereview from a customer, a dynamic control may be generated which allowsa user to discuss the review with peers.

3.1 Context

In various embodiments, the techniques herein address problems that theinventors have identified in the way users interact with content intraditional chat interfaces. Traditionally, chat interfaces allow usersto view communications between parties and perform certain fixedactions. For example, a chat interface may allow a user to delete amessage, reply to a message, or attach an item to a message. The tasksthat can be performed with these actions are often limited.

3.2 Implementation

Aspects of the present disclosure provide a collaboration platform 102that allows content providers 106 to add conditional controls in chatinterfaces. The embodiments described herein permit a content providerto define conditional controls that can be added to messages sent byusers or integrations, to dynamic content items, and/or to relatedcontent.

In the embodiments described herein, a conditional control is defined bya content provider 106 and is associated with one or more displayconditions. Display conditions are evaluated by a client 104 todetermine whether or not the conditional control should be displayed andmade available to the user of the client 104.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example chat interface 1400 which includesconditional controls. The chat interface 1400 includes a message area1402 that shows messages from different users and integrations, an inputarea 1403 where a user can create a new message, a right side panel 1404that (in this instance) shows related content for integration ‘ABC’, anda left side panel 1406 that depicts the various rooms a user is a memberof and the members of the current chat room.

In interface 1400, conditional controls are provided in multiplelocations. In order to view conditional controls, a user selects a viewcontrols button 1408. In the context of the view controls button,“button” should be understood as being any UI element/control that auser can interact with. In FIG. 14, the view controls buttons 1408 aredepicted as ellipses (“ . . . ”), however any other control may be used.When a user activates/selects the view controls button 408, relevantconditional controls 410 are displayed. The conditional controls may bedisplayed in a pop-up window, drop-down window, or any other suchwindow.

Interface 1400 depicts two sets of conditional controls (1414 and 1416)which are associated with, and have display conditions based on,received messages. For a given message, display conditions can be basedthe content and/or context of the message, for example: the content ofthe message (e.g. whether a predefined regular expression is matched),the presence and/or type of any message attachments, the sender of themessage (i.e., see conditional control 1418), or other content/contextinformation.

By way of an example, a calendar integration may define a conditional“open calendar” control to be displayed whenever a message includeswords such as “organize”, a date, a day, “schedule”, “calendar”,“appointment”, etc. In chat interface 1400, Emma Eager's message is“let's organize a team lunch!” As a word in this message matches acondition of the calendar conditional control, the conditional control1414, “open calendar,” is displayed when the user selects view controlsbutton 408 b. The user can then select the “open calendar” control tolaunch a calendar application which, for example, provides an indicationof the availability of the people in the chat room.

By way of another example, an integration may create a conditionalcontrols “open in sidebar” and/or “open in external page” that aredisplayed when a message includes a link. In chat interface 1400, AlanaAware's message includes a link. Accordingly, the conditional controls1416, “open in sidebar” and “open in external page” are displayed whenthe user selects view controls buttons 1408 c.

Conditional controls may also be associated with dynamic content itemsor related content. For example, a social media integration may createconditional controls such as “discuss with peers” or “open inapplication” if a dynamic content item, message notification, or relatedcontent reveals hostile tweets. Similarly, integration ABC may createconditional controls such as “discuss” and “open in ABC” when the statusof a dynamic content item or related content is “to do”, “we aredoomed”, “some things are in error”, “errors found”, “bugs found”, etc.In chat interface 1400, the related content is populated by integrationABC. Because the status of the related content is “to do”, conditionalactions “discuss” and “open in ABC” are displayed when the user selectsthe view controls button 408 d.

As described above, aspects of the present disclosure allow contentproviders 106 to create integrations and declare these integrations tothe collaboration platform 102. In certain embodiments, conditionalcontrols are defined in an integration descriptor.

One example of an integration descriptor that defines a conditionalcontrol is depicted in FIG. 15. As can be seen in the figure, thedescriptor 1500 is similar to descriptor 500 discussed with reference toFIG. 5 above, with portion 1502 providing general information in respectof the integration and portion 1504 defining the capabilities of theintegration. In this case the integration supports a conditionalcontrol. Accordingly, the capabilities section 1504 includes aconditional control UI extension descriptor 1506.

In this particular example, the conditional control UI extensiondescriptor 1506 includes: a key, defining a stable technical identifierthat can be used internally to identify the element; name information,defining a name of the control (i.e. a label for the control that isdisplayed); query URL information, defining an endpoint, such as a RESTendpoint, exposed by the integration for dynamic content; targetinformation, defining the action to be performed if the conditionalcontrol is activated by a user (for example, the target may define a keyof a dialog box, a panel, an external page, an external application); alocation, defining the object or element of the user interface that theconditional control is to be associated with, e.g. a message, dynamiccontent item, or related content (in descriptor 1500, the conditionalcontrol is defined to be associated with a message); and conditionsinformation defining any conditions associated with the display of theconditional control.

As described previously, the conditions defined in the conditionalcontrol UI extension descriptor 1506 may be contextual (i.e., depend onthe context or content) or characteristic (i.e., depend on acharacteristic, such as recipient, sender, type of room, etc.). Examplecontextual conditions include: content includes a link, content textincludes a matching string, content is a notification, content matches aregular expression, content is of a particular style, a value in thecontent is lower than or higher than a threshold, etc. Examplecharacteristic conditions include: message sent by a particularuser/integration, message sent by an administrator, message sent by aguest user, user is the room owner, admin, or guest, room is a publicroom or a private room, etc. In descriptor 1500, the conditional controlis displayed when a message contains a link.

In order for a client 104 to display conditional controls in a userinterface, such as chat interface 1400, an integration which includesconditional controls is installed at/activated by the client 104.

3.2.1 Operation Overview

FIG. 16 illustrates a high level message passing diagram for installingintegrations with conditional controls in one or more chat groups.Process 1600 of FIG. 16 is similar to process 600 of FIG. 6, with theonly difference being that the integration includes one or moreconditional controls in addition to or instead of dynamic content items.Accordingly, FIG. 16 uses the same reference numerals as FIG. 6 and theprocess need not be described again.

3.2.1.1 Collaboration Platform Operation

FIG. 17 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary method 1700 performedby the collaboration platform 102 to install an integration offering aconditional control at a client 104.

Method 1700 is similar to method 700 described previously, with theexception that the integration in question provides one or moreconditional controls. Accordingly, FIG. 17 uses the same referencenumerals as FIG. 7 and the process need not be described again.

3.2.1.2 Client Operation

FIG. 18 illustrates an exemplary method 1800 performed by a client toinstall and run an integration having conditional controls in aparticular chat room. It will be appreciated that a similar method canbe used to install the integration in another chat room or globally.

Steps 1802, 1804, and 1806 of method 800 are concerned with installationof an integration which provides a conditional control. These steps aresimilar to steps 802, 804, and 806 of method 800 respectively, and willnot be described again.

At 1808, the client 104 detects that a view controls button 1408 hasbeen activated in the chat interface. View controls buttons 1408 aredisplayed for various UI elements in the chat interface. For example,view controls buttons may be displayed for each message in the chathistory, for any dynamic content item (if displayed), and for relatedcontent (if displayed).

At 1810, the client 104 determines the type of UI element associatedwith the activated view controls button 1408 and checks to see if anyconditional controls are defined for this type of element for the chatroom in question. This may involve, for example, querying datastructures stored by the client to identify integrations associated withthe room, any conditional controls for those integrations, and (of thoseconditional controls) any that are associated with the type of elementidentified.

If, at 1810, no conditional controls associated with the UI element areidentified, the method proceeds to 1812. At 1812 the client 104 mayalert the user that no conditional controls are available, for exampleby displaying an empty list of controls (e.g. an empty drop-down menu)or a message such as “no conditional controls available”. In certainembodiments activation of a view controls button 1408 may cause client104 to show both conditional and non-conditional controls(non-conditional controls being controls that are always madeavailable). In this case any non-conditional controls are displayed at1812.

If, at 1810, one or more conditional controls associated with the UIelement are identified, the method proceeds to step 1814. At 1814, theclient 104 evaluates the conditions of the identified conditionalcontrols to determine which (if any) conditional controls should be madeavailable to the user. For example, if the user selects a view controlsbutton associated with a message in the chat history, the client 104determines if the context or characteristic of the message satisfies thecontextual and/or characteristic conditions of any of the identifiedconditional controls.

If, at 1814, the conditions of any of the identified conditionalcontrols are met, the method proceeds to step 1816. At 1816, the client104 displays each conditional control whose conditions have been met inthe user interface.

If none of the identified conditional controls have conditions that aremet, the method returns to 1812 and no conditional controls are renderedin the user interface.

3.3 Clauses

Described herein is a computer implemented method for displaying aconditional control in a chat interface running on a client device, themethod comprising: receiving, from a collaboration platform, aconditional control descriptor, the conditional control descriptordefining a conditional control, one or more conditions, and an action tobe performed on activation of the conditional control; determiningwhether the one or more conditions are met; and in response todetermining that the one or more conditions are met, displaying theconditional control in the chat interface.

The method may further comprise: displaying a view controls button inthe chat interface; and detecting activation of the view controlsbutton, and wherein determining whether the one or more conditions aremet is performed in response to detecting activation of the viewcontrols button.

The conditional control descriptor may further define an element typethat the conditional control is associated with; and the view controlsbutton may be associated with a particular element of the chatinterface, the particular element having an element type, and wherein ondetecting activation of the view controls button the method may furthercomprise determining the element type associated with the view controlsbutton; determining if the element type associated with the conditionalcontrol matches the element type of the activated view controls button,and wherein determining whether the one or more conditions are met isperformed in response to determining that the element type associatedwith the conditional control matches the element type of the activatedview controls button.

The one or more conditions associated with the conditional control maybe based the content of the particular element the view controls buttonis associated with.

The one or more conditions associated with the conditional control maybe based the context of the particular element the view controls buttonis associated with.

The one or more conditions may define a regular expression; anddetermining whether the one or more conditions are met may comprisedetermining whether content of the particular element that the viewcontrols button is associated with matches the regular expression.

The conditional control may be associated with a message element type;the one or more conditions may define a regular expression; the viewcontrols button may be associated with a particular message received inthe chat interface; and determining whether the one or more conditionsare met may comprise determining whether content of the particularmessage matches the regular expression.

The conditional control descriptor may further comprise a location fieldspecifying a location in the chat interface where the conditionalcontrol can be displayed.

In response to determining that the one or more conditions are met, theconditional control may be displayed in a menu of controls together withother, non-conditional controls.

Also described herein is an electronic device configured to operate as aclient to a collaboration platform, the computer processing systemcomprising: one or more processors; a display, a communicationsinterface; and one or more non-transitory computer-readable storagemedia storing sequences of instructions which, when executed by the oneor more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a methodas described in the preceding paragraphs of this section (section 3.3).

Also described herein is non-transient computer readable storagecomprising instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause theprocessor to cause the one or more processors to perform a method asdescribed in the preceding paragraphs of this section (section 3.3).

4. Integration Synchronization

As outlined above, the collaboration platform 102 of the presentinvention enables content providers 106 to provide integrations whichcan be installed by clients 104.

In the embodiments described above, integrations are defined bydescriptors which can define one or more UI extensions. E.g. descriptor500 described a dynamic content item (and related content) UI extension,while descriptor 1500 described a conditional control UI extension.

An integration descriptor may define further UI extensions in UIextension descriptors. As one example, an integration descriptor mayinclude a webhook UI extension descriptor defining a webhook UIextension. An example of an integration descriptor that defines awebhook is shown in Table P below:

TABLE P Example integration descriptor with webhook UI extension {″name″: ″My Integration″, ″description″: ″An integration that doeswonderful things″, ″key″: ″com.example.myintegration″, ″links″: {″homepage″: ″https://example.com/myintegration″, ″self″:″https://example.com/myintegration/capabilities″ }, ″capabilities″: {“dynamic content item 1”: [{<dynamic content item detail>}] “relatedcontent 1”: [{<related content detail>}] “dynamic content item 2”:[{<dynamic content item detail>}] ″conditional control 1″:[{<conditional control detail>}] ″conditional control 2″: [{<conditionalcontrol detail>}] ″conditional control 3″: [{<conditional controldetail>}] ″webhook″: [ { ″event″: ″room_message″, ″pattern″:″{circumflex over ( )}\\/hello$″, ″url″: ″youraddon.com/hello″, ″name″:″Hello webhook″, ″authentication″: ″jwt″ } ] } }

The integration descriptor shown in Table P includes two dynamic contentitem and one related content item UI extensions (details of which havebeen omitted but have been described above with respect to FIG. 5),three conditional control UI extensions (details of which have beenomitted but have been described above with respect to FIG. 15), and onewebhook UI extension.

A given integration descriptor may define any number and combination ofUI extensions. Furthermore, content providers 106 may, over time, updateintegrations (in order to add, modify or delete their capabilities) ordelete previously offered integrations. For example, content providers106 may update integrations to add/modify/delete dynamic content items,related content, conditional controls, and/or other UI extensions.

Changes to (or deletion of) a given integration should ideally berelayed to any clients 104 who have that integration installed. Incertain embodiments the collaboration platform 102 provides mechanismsfor this to ensure that any integrations installed at clients 104 aresynchronized with the current states/versions of those integrations.This section describes these mechanisms in two broad categories:server-initiated integration synchronization and client-initiatedintegration synchronization.

4.1 Context

A collaboration platform 102 may offer services for large numbers ofclients 104 and content providers 106. To facilitate operation, and asdescribed above, platform 102 maintains data structures for trackingwhich integrations have been installed in which rooms (and which usersare members of those rooms), and which integrations have been globallyinstalled.

When the content providers 106 update, add or delete integrations orspecific capabilities of their integrations, the collaboration platform102 has to update its own database. As integrations are added, updatedand deleted the clients 104 also need to be kept up to date. This willbe referred to generally as integration synchronization.

When the collaboration platform manages 102 a small number of clientsand content providers, this synchronization may be a relatively simplematter. However, when the collaboration platform manages numerousclients 104 and content providers 106, synchronization can become verycomplex. This is due to the fact that integrations may be global (i.e.installed at all clients 104) or room based (i.e. installed only atclients 104 that are members of a given room), that any given client maybe a member of many different rooms, that each room may have manydifferent integrations etc. Furthermore, clients 104 connect to (anddisconnect from) the collaboration platform at different times.

4.2 Implementation

Two broad synchronization processes are described: client-initiatedintegration synchronization and server-initiated integrationsynchronization. Client-initiated integration synchronization occurs,for example, when a user opens a chat client or joins a new room.Server-initiated integration synchronization occurs, for example, whenan existing integration (i.e. an integration already installed at one ormore clients 104) is updated or deleted by the content provider 106 orcollaboration platform 102.

In order to facilitate synchronization, each integration is associatedwith an integration token. An integration token is generated based onthe content of the integration using a token generation method thatprovides a unique token for the integration. Various methods forgenerating these tokens may be used.

In the present embodiments, an integration token is a hash ofinformation regarding the integration. As described above, when a newintegration descriptor is received, or an existing integration isupdated, the collaboration platform 102 stores new or updated UIextension descriptors for the UI extensions provided by the integration.These UI extension descriptors (i.e. all current UI extensiondescriptors for a given integration) are then used to create a token forthe integration, e.g. hex (sha-1(UI extension descriptors)).

Any additional detail as desired may be included in input to the tokencalculations, the goal being to generate a unique descriptor that takesinto account any details of the integration that could potentiallychange (and therefore will result in a different token being generatedif any relevant changes to an integration are made). By using UIextension descriptors, the collaboration system 102 can recalculate anintegration token any time a content provider 106 updates an integration(using, for example, the API offering provided above) byadding/removing/changing its functionality.

As an alternative example, however, the entire integration descriptionitself could be used to create an integration token for the integration,e.g. hex (sha-1(integration descriptor)). In this case, contentproviders may simply submit a new integration descriptor when updatingan integration (rather than, for example, using the API to modify/updateselected portions of an integration).

As described above, integration tokens are stored by the collaborationplatform 102, for example in a cache (e.g. a Redis cache) or otherdatabase (e.g. database 115). When an integration is installed at aclient 104, the integration token for the integration is alsocommunicated to the client 104 (in the integration installationinformation) and stored on the client's local memory.

In the embodiments described below, room tokens are generated inaddition to individual integration tokens. Room tokens provide a uniqueidentifier for the integration state of a room: i.e. the particularintegrations installed in a given room and the versions of thoseintegrations. Various methods may be utilized for generating roomtokens, but in the present embodiment a room token generated bycalculating a hash of the integration tokens of all the integrationsinstalled in the room, such as hex (sha-1(integration tokens)). Roomtokens are generated each time the integration state of a roomchanges—i.e. when an integration is added to or removed from a room, oran integration associated with a room is updated.

To synchronize integrations stored in the memory of a client 104 withthe integrations stored in the database 115, the collaboration platform102 compares tokens stored by the client 104 (received, for example, ina sync request) with the corresponding tokens stored by thecollaboration platform 102. If the tokens match, the collaborationplatform 102 determines that the client 104 and integration server 114are synchronized. However, if the tokens do not match, the collaborationplatform 102 recognizes that the client 104 is not synchronized with theintegration server 114 and sends updated integration information to theclient 104.

4.2.1 Client-Initiated Integration Synchronization

FIG. 19 illustrates an exemplary method 1900 for client-initiatedsynchronization. As described previously, this method may be employedwhenever a user opens a chat client 104, or enters a new chat room.

The method begins with a client 104 sending a synchronization request tothe API server 110 (as indicated by arrow 1902). The API server 110forwards the request to the integration server 114 (indicated by arrow1904).

If the integration server 114 determines that the integration(s) storedby the client 104 are out of date, the integration server 114 generatesa synchronization update and forwards this to the API server 110(indicated by arrow 1906). The API server 110 responds to the clientthat sent the synchronization request with the synchronization update(indicated by arrow 1908). The client 104 can then update its localmemory.

If the integration server 114 determines that the integration(s) storedby the client 104 are up to date, it may either respond with a messageto this effect or send no response at all (which is interpreted by theclient 104 as indicating the integrations are up to date).

The synchronization steps will be described in detail with reference toFIGS. 20-21.

4.2.1.1 Client Operation

FIG. 20 illustrates an exemplary method 2000 performed by a client 104to synchronize integrations stored in its local memory.

At 2002, the client 104 triggers synchronization. The client 104 maytrigger synchronization in various circumstances, for example when theclient 104 has just been opened, and when the user enters a new room.

At 2004, the client 104 generates a sync request to update its installedintegrations. The data included in the sync request depends on howsynchronization was triggered and, accordingly, which integrations theclient 104 is requesting synchronization of.

For example, where a sync request is triggered due to the client 104having just been opened, the client 104 requests synchronization of allstored integrations, i.e., the integrations in all chat rooms the clientis a member of and any global integrations. In this case, the client 104retrieves the following from local memory for inclusion in the syncrequest: room identifiers for rooms which the client is a member of;integration identifiers for all integrations installed in those rooms;the integration tokens for those integrations (as received when theintegration was installed or last synchronized). Global integrations maybe considered to be part of a global room.

As an alternative example, if a sync request is triggered due to a userentering a new room, the client requests synchronization only for theroom it has newly entered. To that end, the client 104 retrieves thefollowing from local memory for inclusion in a sync request: the roomidentifier for the room in question; integration identifiers for theintegrations the client 104 has installed in that room; and integrationtokens for those integrations. Where a user enters a room but does nothave any locally stored integrations for the room, the sync request maybe sent without any integration identifiers or integration tokens.

Table Q below provides one example of a synchronization request:

TABLE Q Example synchronization request { “knownIntegrations”: {“global”: { “integration 1”: “f224ff3e...”, “integration2”:“123baa24...” }, “123”: { “integration 1”: “7a5233c5...” }, “456”: {“integration 2”: “4aaf3e21...” } }  }

In this example, “Global:” indicates the global integrations installedat the client, whereas “123:” and “456:” are the room identifiers of twodifferent rooms.

At 2006, the client 104 forwards the sync request to the API server 112.

At 2008, the client 104 receives a synchronization update from thecollaboration platform 102. The synchronization update includes updatedintegration information in respect of any changed integrations pertinentto the client 104 (in case of opening a chat client) and pertinent to aroom (in case a new room is entered). If an integration was uninstalledor deleted since the last synchronization, the synchronization updateincludes the integration identifier (e.g. key) and a flag indicatingthat the integration has been deleted. Unchanged integrations are notmentioned in the synchronization update. Table R provides an example ofa synchronization update:

TABLE R Example synchronization update { ″changedIntegrations″: {″global″: [ { ″integration_key″: ″integration 1″, ″token″:″e672ad23...″, ″name″: ″My Add-on″, ″ui_extensions″: [ { ″type″:″Dynamic content item″, ″key″: ″my-Dynamic content item″, ″name″: ″MyPanel″, ″Queryurl″: ″{{localbaseURL}}/Dynamic content item″, ″location″:″interface.sidebar.right″ “icon”: { “conditions”:[ ] } } ] } ] ″123″: [{ ″integration_key″: ″com.example_integration.hipchat″, ″is_deleted″:true } ], ″456″: [ ]  } }

This example synchronization update includes updated information for oneintegration, i.e., global integration “integration 1”. Accordingly, theclient 104 understands that only one integration has been updated sincethe last synchronization. The synchronization update has also returned adeleted flag for an integration, i.e., integration“com.example_integration.hipchat” in room 123. Accordingly, the client104 recognizes that that integration should be deleted from room 123. Nodescriptors are returned for room 456, so the client 104 understandsthat no changes were made to the integrations of room 456.

At 2010, the client 104 updates the local memory. Specifically, theclient replaces existing locally stored integration information with theintegration information received in the synchronization update. Forexample, on receiving the above synchronization update, the client 104would delete the locally stored information for the integration with thekey “integration 1” (both descriptor information and the integrationtoken) and replace it with the “integration 1” information received inthe synchronization response. Also, the association between chat room“123” and integration “com.example_integration.hipchat” is deleted.

Once the client 104 has received and processed the synchronizationupdate the client 104 is synchronized. The client 104 can then act onthe updated integrations as normal, for example by displaying anydynamic data (as described with reference to steps 808-822 of FIG. 8)and displaying any conditional controls (as described with respect to1810-1820 of FIG. 18).

4.2.1.2 Collaboration Platform Operation

FIG. 21 illustrates an exemplary method 2100 performed by thecollaboration platform 102 to respond to a sync request received from aclient 104.

At 2102, the API server 112 receives a sync request (as described above)from a client 104.

At 2104, the sync request is forwarded to the integration server 114,which retrieves the integration identifiers, integration tokens, and theroom identifiers from the sync request. Using the integration and roomidentifiers retrieved from the request, the integration server 114 canidentify (and retrieve) the corresponding integration tokens and roomtokens as stored in database 115.

At 2106, the integration server 114 determines if the sync requestincludes any room identifiers that have not yet been processed.

If, at 2106, there are any unprocessed rooms, the method proceeds to2108. At 2108 the integration server 114 identifies the next unprocessedroom in the sync request. Initially, the “next” room will be the firstroom described in the sync request. As method 2100 continues furtherrooms described in the sync request are considered. Once the next roomin the sync request has been identified, the integration server 114calculates a room token for that room based on the integration tokensfor that room as received in the sync request.

At 2110, the integration server 114 compares the room tokens for theroom identified at 2108. This involves the integration server 114comparing the client's version of the room token (as calculated based onthe sync request or received in the sync request) and the server'sversion of the room token (as stored by the integration server 114).

If, at 2110, the room tokens match, the integration server 114determines that no changes have been made to any of the integrationsassociated with that room. In this case the method returns to 2106 tosee whether further rooms included in the sync request need to beconsidered.

If, at 2110, the room tokens do not match, the integration server 114determines that changes have been made to one or more of theintegrations associated with that room. In this case the integrationserver 114 considers the individual integrations for the room inquestion to determine where the change(s) lie (steps 2112 to 2122).

At 2112, the integration server 114 determines if the sync requestincludes reference to any integrations for the room currently beingconsidered (i.e. the room last identified at 2108) that have not beenprocessed.

If, at 2112, there are unprocessed integrations for the room in the syncrequest, the method proceeds to 2114. At 2114 the integration server 114identifies the next unprocessed integration for the room in questionfrom the sync request. At the start of each room processing loop (i.e.the loop in which the individual integrations for a given room areconsidered), the “next” integration will be the first integrationdescribed for the room in question in the sync request.

At 2116, the integration server 114 compares the integration tokens forthe integration identified at 2108 (i.e. compares the integration tokenas received in the sync request with the corresponding integration tokenstored by the integration server 114).

If, at 2116, the integration token from the sync request matches acorresponding integration token stored by the integration server 114,the integration server 114 determines that no changes have been made tothat particular integration. In this case the method returns to 2112 tosee whether further integration tokens in respect of the room inquestion need to be considered.

If, at 2116, the integration token from the sync request does not matchthe corresponding integration token stored by the integration server114, the integration server 114 determines that changes have been madeto the integration and the method proceeds to 2118. Integration tokensare considered to not match when: the value of the token received in thesync request is different from the value of the token stored by theintegration server 114 (which could occur, for example, if theintegration was updated when the client was offline); an integrationtoken received in the sync request has no corresponding token stored bythe integration server 114 (which could occur, for example, if theintegration was deleted from the room while the client was offline).

At 2118, the integration server 114 updates the synchronization updatethat is to be sent to the client 104. Where the comparison made at 2116indicates that the integration has been updated, the integration server114 retrieves the relevant information for the integration (e.g. the UIextension descriptors) from the database 115 and includes thisinformation (or otherwise flags this information for inclusion in) thesynchronization update that will be sent to the client 104. Where thecomparison made at 2116 indicates that an integration installed at theclient 104 has been deleted, the integration server 114 updates thesynchronization update to flag this integration for deletion. Followingthis the method returns to 2112 to determine if other integrations forthe room need to be processed.

If, at 2112, there are no more unprocessed integrations for the room inquestion in the sync request, the method proceeds to 2120. At 2120, theintegration server 114 checks to see if the room in question (i.e. theroom last identified at 2108) includes one or more integrations thatwere not included in the sync request. This may occur, for example, ifan integration was added to a room while the client 104 was offline.

If, at 2120, the room in question doesn't have any integrations notincluded in the sync request, the process returns to 2106 to determineif further rooms need to be considered.

If, at 2120, the room in question does have one or more integrations notincluded in the sync request, the integration server 114 retrievesinformation for the integration(s) not included in the sync request fromthe database 115 and includes this information (or otherwise flags thisinformation for inclusion in) the synchronization update that will besent to the client 104. Following this, the process returns to 2106 todetermine if further rooms need to be considered.

If, at 2106, there are no further rooms to be considered, the methodproceeds to 2124. At 2124 the integration server forwards thesynchronization update to the API server 104. The synchronization updateincludes: information in respect of any integrations that been updatedor added (per 2118 and 2122) and deletion flags for any integrationsthat have been deleted (per 2118).

The API server 110 then responds to the client's synchronization requestwith the synchronization update.

In the method described above, room tokens are used in order to makecomparisons at a room-level. This can provide processingefficiencies—for example, if the room token calculated by theintegration server 114 based on the sync request matches the room tokenstored by the integration server 114, then there is no need to considerthe individual integrations associated with that room.

In the method described above room tokens are not communicated from thecollaboration platform 102 to the clients 104 or, as a result, includedin synchronization requests sent by the clients 104. In alternativeembodiments, however, this may occur: i.e. room tokens may becommunicated to and stored by the clients 104 (e.g. any time anintegration is installed or updated), and included in any sync requestscommunicated by the client 104. In this case the integration server 114can simply retrieve the relevant room token from the sync request andneed not recalculate this based on the integration tokens received inthe sync request.

By way of further alternative, when room tokens do not match (at 2110),instead of considering individual integrations within the room toidentify specific changes (at steps 2112 to 2122), the integrationserver 114 may simply prepare the synchronization update to includecurrent information on all integrations for the room in question. Inthis case individual integration tokens for the room in question neednot be compared (i.e. steps 2112 to 2122 are omitted).

4.2.2 Server-Initiated Integration Synchronization

As described previously, in some cases, such as when a new integrationis added or deleted by another person in a user's group, thecollaboration platform 102 pushes updated integration information to theclients 104 who are members of that group. Furthermore, if anintegration is updated while a client which has that integration isconnected, the collaboration platform 102 may push the updatedintegration information directly to the client 104. In these cases thesynchronization can be pushed to multiple clients simultaneously,whereas in the client-initiated synchronization described above thesynchronization information (in the synchronization update) is forwardedto the requesting client 104 only. This section describes the high-levelprocess of updating connected clients 104 when an integration pertinentto them changes.

FIG. 22 illustrates an exemplary method 2200 for server-initiatedintegration synchronization. This method is employed whenever a client104 installs a room or global integration, or a content provider 106updates an integration.

The method begins when the API server 112 receives a notification thattriggers a server-initiated synchronization (indicated by arrows 2202).A notification may be received from a client 104 when the client makes arequest to add or delete an integration from a room or to add or deletea global integration. A notification may be received from a contentprovider 106 when an integration is updated or deleted.

The API server 112 receives the notification and passes it to theintegration server (indicated by arrow 2204). The integration server 114updates the database 115 (as indicated by arrow 2206). The integrationserver 114 also generates a synchronization update with the requiredupdate. This update is forwarded to the communication server 108 alongwith a list of recipients (indicated by arrow 2208). The communicationserver forwards the synchronization update to the active recipients(indicated by arrow 2210). The clients 104 subsequently store the updateand render the updates (if required).

This process will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 23-24.

4.2.2.1 Collaboration Platform Operation

FIG. 23 illustrates an exemplary method 2300 performed by thecollaboration platform 102 to push synchronization information to activeclients.

At 2302, the API server 112 receives a notification from either a client104 or a content provider 106. As described previously, the notificationoriginates from the client or the content provider in differentsituations. Generally, speaking, the notification informs thecollaboration platform 102 that an integration is added to or removedfrom a room or globally (i.e., when the notification is sent by a client104) or that a content provider has updated or deleted an integration(when the notification is sent by the content provider). Table S belowprovides one example of a notification which has a similar format to thesync request described above, but is embedded in an XMPP message:

TABLE S Example notification <bodyxmlns=‘http://jabber.org/protocol/httpbind’> <iqxmlns=‘jabber:client’to=‘3_4@chat.devvm.hipchat.com/web||proxy|devvm.hipchat.com|5222’ type=‘set’> <queryxmlns=‘http://hipchat.com/protocol/integrations’ format=‘json’>{“changedIntegrations”: {“123”: [list of content items]}} </query> </iq></body>

In this example, the “changedIntegrations” element has the samestructure as in the sync request example described above.

At 2304, the API server 112 forwards this notification to theintegration server 114 which updates the database 115 accordingly.Depending on the nature of the notification, this may involve, forexample: associating one or more integrations with an existing chat roomand generating a replacement room token for that room (e.g. if a client104 requests an integration to be added to a room); disassociating oneor more integrations with a chat room and generating a replacement roomtoken for that room (e.g. if a client 104 requests an integration to beremoved from a room or a content provider 106 deletes an integration);updating existing integration information with updated integrationinformation, generating a replacement integration token for theintegration, and generating replacement room tokens for any rooms theintegration is installed in (e.g. if a content provider 106 provides anupdated integration).

At 2306, the integration server 114 generates a synchronization updatethat includes details with respect to the updated integration(s). Thesynchronization update may have the same or a similar form as thesynchronization update described in Table R above.

At 2308, the integration server 114 forwards the synchronization updateto the communication server 108, along with a list of recipients thatthe update is to be sent to. If the update is for a particular room, theintegration server 114 identifies the members of the room (e.g. from theroom/user table) and forwards this list to the communication server 108.Alternatively, if the update is for a particular integration, theintegration server 114 identifies all the rooms which have installedthat integration and all the members of those rooms (e.g. from theroom/integration table) and forwards this list to the communicationserver 108.

At 2310, the communication server 108 determines which recipients in thelist are currently connected (by performing a lookup in the connectionstable) and identifies the persistent connections of those clients. Itthen forwards the synchronization update to the identified persistentconnections.

4.2.2.2 Client Operation

FIG. 24 illustrates an exemplary method performed by a client 104 toreceive client-initiated synchronizations.

At 2402, the client 104 receives a synchronization update from thecollaboration platform 102.

The client 104 processes the synchronization update to extract therelevant information and stores this in local memory at 2404. Forexample: if an integration is updated, the integration descriptor andcorresponding token are extracted from the synchronization update andstored in the integration table; if an integration is removed from aparticular chat room, the integration table is updated by removing thatparticular chat room from the corresponding integration entry in thetable; if a global integration is removed, the entire integration entryis deleted from the integration table; if a new integration is installedfor the first time, a new entry is created in the integration table; ifan integration is installed in a new chat room but was already installedfor another chat room, the integration entry is updated to include thenew chat room's identifier.

Once the client 104 has received and processed the synchronizationupdate the client 104 is synchronized. The client 104 can then act onthe updated integrations as normal, for example by displaying anydynamic data (as described with reference to steps 808-822 of FIG. 8)and displaying any conditional controls (as described with respect to1810-1820 of FIG. 18).

4.3 Clauses

Described herein is a computer implemented method for operating acollaboration system to synchronize integrations installed on a clientdevice with integrations stored by the collaboration system, the methodcomprising: receiving a synchronization request from the client device,the synchronization request including integration details with respectto one or more integrations installed on the client device, theintegration details for each integration included in the synchronizationrequest comprising: an integration identifier identifying theintegration; and a client integration token, the client integrationtoken being a unique descriptor of a particular version of theintegration installed on the client device; and for a given integrationincluded in the synchronization request, the method further comprises:retrieving a system integration token based on the given integrationidentifier, the system integration token being a unique descriptor of acurrent version of the integration identified by the given integrationidentifier; comparing the client integration token associated with thegiven integration identifier with the system integration tokenassociated with the given integration identifier; and responsive todetermining that the client integration token associated with the givenintegration identifier does not match the system integration tokenassociated with the given integration: determining the client to be outof date with respect to the given integration; and sending anintegration update to the client device, the integration updateincluding information with respect to the current version of the givenintegration.

The integration token for an integration may be calculated based oninformation from an integration descriptor of that integration, theintegration descriptor of the integration describing one or more userinterface extensions provided by the integration.

The integration token for an integration may be calculated using a hashfunction.

An integration descriptor may include one or more user interfaceextension descriptors, each user interface extension descriptor defininga user interface extension offered by the integration; and theintegration token for an integration may be calculated based on the oneor more user interface extension descriptors for that integration.

The integration token for an integration may be a hash function of theone or more user interface extension descriptors for that integration.

A client integration token received in the synchronization request maybe calculated by the collaboration platform system and communicated tothe client device on installation of the integration by the client.

The integration update sent to the client device may include anintegration token in respect of the current version of the givenintegration.

The integration request may further comprise at least one roomidentifier identifying a particular room, each room identifier beingassociated with one or more integrations installed by the client devicein that room, and for a given room identifier the method furthercomprises: retrieving, from the synchronization request, clientintegration tokens for all integrations associated with the given roomidentifier in the synchronization request; calculating a client roomtoken based on the client integration tokens retrieved from thesynchronization request; retrieving a system room token associated withthe given room identifier, the system room token being a uniquedescriptor of a current integration state of the room, the currentintegration state of the room including particular versions ofparticular integrations that should be installed in the room; comparingthe client room token associated with the given room identifier with thesystem room token associated with the given room identifier; andresponsive to determining that the client room token associated with thegiven room identifier matches the system room token associated with thegiven room, determining that all integrations associated with the givenroom identifier are up to date.

Responsive to determining that the client room token associated with thegiven room identifier does not match the system room token associatedwith the given room, the method may further comprise: determining atleast one integration associated with the given room identifier is notup to date; and sending an integration update to the client device, theintegration update including information with respect to the currentversions of the integrations associated with the given room identifier.

Responsive to determining that the client room token associated with thegiven room identifier does not match the system room token associatedwith the given room, the method may further comprise: determining atleast one integration associated with the given room identifier is notup to date; determining, using integration tokens of integrationsassociated with the given room identifier, the one or more integrationsassociated with the given room that are not up to date; and sending anintegration update to the client device, the integration updateincluding information with respect to the current versions of theintegrations associated with the given room identifier that weredetermined not to be up to date.

Also described herein is a collaboration system comprising: one or moreprocessors; a display, a communications interface; and one or morenon-transitory computer-readable storage media storing sequences ofinstructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, causethe one or more processors to perform a method as described in thepreceding paragraphs of this section (section 4.3).

Also described herein is non-transient computer readable storagecomprising instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause theprocessor to perform a method as described in the preceding paragraphsof this section (section 4.3).

5. Hardware Overview

In certain embodiments, the techniques and methods described herein areimplemented by one or more special-purpose computing devices. Thespecial-purpose computing devices may be hard-wired to perform thetechniques, or may include digital electronic devices such as one ormore application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or fieldprogrammable gate arrays (FPGAs) that are persistently programmed toperform the techniques, or may include one or more general purposehardware processors programmed to perform the techniques pursuant toprogram instructions in firmware, memory, other storage, or acombination. Such special-purpose computing devices may also combinecustom hardwired logic, ASICs, or FPGAs with custom programming toaccomplish the techniques. The special purpose computing devices may bedesktop computer systems, portable computer systems, handheld devices,networking devices or any other device that incorporates hard-wiredand/or program logic to implement the techniques.

For example, FIG. 25 is a block diagram that illustrates a computersystem 2500 upon which an embodiment of the invention may beimplemented. Computer system 2500 includes a bus 2502 or othercommunication mechanism for communicating information, and a hardwareprocessor 104 coupled with bus 2502 for processing information. Hardwareprocessor 2504 may be, for example, a general purpose microprocessor.

Computer system 2500 also includes a main memory 2506, such as a randomaccess memory (RAM) or other dynamic storage device, coupled to bus 2502for storing information and instructions to be executed by processor2504. Main memory 2506 also may be used for storing temporary variablesor other intermediate information during execution of instructions to beexecuted by processor 2504. Such instructions, when stored innon-transitory storage media accessible to processor 2504, rendercomputer system 2500 into a special-purpose machine that is customizedto perform the operations specified in the instructions.

Computer system 2500 further includes a read only memory (ROM) 2508 orother static storage device coupled to bus 2502 for storing staticinformation and instructions for processor 2504. A storage device 2510,such as a magnetic disk or optical disk, is provided and coupled to bus2502 for storing information and instructions.

Computer system 2500 may be coupled via bus 102 to one more outputdevices such as a display 2512 for displaying information to a computeruser. Display 2512 may, for example, be a cathode ray tube (CRT), aliquid crystal display (LCD), a light emitting diode (LED display), or atouch screen display. An input device 2514, including alphanumeric andother keys, may be coupled to bus 2502 for communicating information andcommand selections to processor 2504. Another type of user input deviceis cursor control 2516, such as a mouse, a trackball, or cursordirection keys for communicating direction information and commandselections to processor 2504 and for controlling cursor movement ondisplay 2512. This input device typically has two degrees of freedom intwo axes, a first axis (e.g., x) and a second axis (e.g., y), thatpermits the device to specify positions in a plane. Additional and/oralternative input devices are possible, for example touch screendisplays.

Computer system 2500 may implement the techniques described herein usingcustomized hardwired logic, one or more ASICs or FPGAs, firmware and/orprogram logic which in combination with the computer system causes orprograms computer system 2500 to be a special-purpose machine. Accordingto one embodiment, the techniques herein are performed by computersystem 2500 in response to processor 2504 executing one or moresequences of one or more instructions contained in main memory 106. Suchinstructions may be read into main memory 106 from another storagemedium, such as storage device 2510. Execution of the sequences ofinstructions contained in main memory 2506 causes processor 2504 toperform the process steps described herein. In alternative embodiments,hardwired circuitry may be used in place of or in combination withsoftware instructions.

The term “storage media” as used herein refers to any non-transitorymedia that store data and/or instructions that cause a machine tooperation in a specific fashion. Such storage media may comprisenon-volatile media and/or volatile media. Non-volatile media includes,for example, optical or magnetic disks, such as storage device 2510.Volatile media includes dynamic memory, such as main memory 2506. Commonforms of storage media include, for example, hard disk, solid statedrive, magnetic tape, or any other magnetic data storage medium, aCD-ROM, any other optical data storage medium, any physical medium withpatterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, NVRAM, anyother memory chip or cartridge.

Storage media is distinct from but may be used in conjunction withtransmission media. Transmission media participates in transferringinformation between storage media. For example, transmission mediaincludes coaxial cables, copper wire and fiber optics, including thewires that comprise bus 2502. Transmission media can also take the formof acoustic or light waves, such as those generated during radio-waveand infra-red data 5 communications.

Various forms of media may be involved in carrying one or more sequencesof one or more instructions to processor 2504 for execution. Forexample, the instructions may initially be carried on a magnetic disk orsolid state drive of a remote computer. The remote computer can load theinstructions into its dynamic memory and send the instructions over atelephone line using a modem. A modem local to computer system 2500 canreceive the data on the telephone line and use an infra-red transmitterto convert the data to an infra-red signal. An infra-red detector canreceive the data carried in the infra-red signal and appropriatecircuitry can place the data on bus 2502. Bus 2502 carries the data tomain memory 2506, from which processor 2504 retrieves and executes theinstructions. The instructions received by main memory 2506 mayoptionally be stored on storage device 2510 either before or afterexecution by processor 2504.

Computer system 2500 also includes a communication interface 2518coupled to bus 2502. Communication interface 2518 provides a two-waydata communication coupling to a network link 2520 that is connected toa local network 2522. For example, communication interface 2518 may bean integrated services digital network (ISDN) card, cable modem,satellite modem, or a modem to provide a data communication connectionto a corresponding type of telephone line. As another example,communication interface 2518 may be a local area network (LAN) card toprovide a data communication connection to a compatible LAN. Wirelesslinks may also be implemented. In any such implementation, communicationinterface 2518 sends and receives electrical, electromagnetic or opticalsignals that carry digital data streams representing various types ofinformation.

Network link 2520 typically provides data communication through one ormore networks to other data devices. For example, network link 2520 mayprovide a connection through local network 2522 to a client computer2524 or to data equipment operated by an Internet Service Provider (ISP)2526. ISP 2526 in turn provides data communication services through theworld wide packet data communication network now commonly referred to asthe “Internet” 2528. Local network 2522 and Internet 2528 both useelectrical, electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital datastreams. The signals through the various networks and the signals onnetwork link 2520 and through communication interface 2516, which carrythe digital data to and from computer system 2500, are example forms oftransmission media.

Computer system 2500 can send messages and receive data, includingprogram code, through the network(s), network link 2520 andcommunication interface 2518. In the Internet example, a server 2530might transmit a requested code for an application program throughInternet 2528, ISP 2526, local network 2522 and communication interface2518.

The received code may be executed by processor 2504 as it is received,and/or stored in storage device 2510, or other non-volatile storage forlater execution.

A computer system as described herein may be configured in a pluralityof useful arrangements. In one approach, a data processing methodcomprises using a server computer, obtaining from one or morenon-transitory computer-readable data storage media a copy of one ormore sequences of instructions that are stored on the media and whichwhen executed using a particular user computer among a plurality of usercomputers cause the particular user computer to perform, using theparticular user computer alone or in combination with the servercomputer, the techniques that are described herein; and using the servercomputer, downloading the copy of the one or more sequences ofinstructions to any user computer among the plurality of user computers.

In another approach, a computer system comprises a server computercomprising one or more non-transitory computer-readable data storagemedia stored with one or more sequences of instructions which whenexecuted using a particular user computer among a plurality of usercomputers cause the particular user computer to perform: using theparticular user computer, alone or in combination with the servercomputer, the techniques that are described herein; and in the servercomputer, stored downloading instructions which, when executed using theserver computer, cause downloading a plurality of copies of the one ormore sequences of instructions to the plurality of user computers.

A computer system may take a variety of forms. For example, computingdevice 116 may be a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a notebookcomputer, a tablet computer, a smart phone, or other another computer.Similarly, the functions of the collaboration platform 102 may beperformed by one or more server computers.

In the foregoing specification, embodiments of the invention have beendescribed with reference to numerous specific details that may vary fromimplementation to implementation. Thus, the sole and exclusive indicatorof what is the invention, and is intended by the applicants to be theinvention, is the set of claims that issue from this application, in thespecific form in which such claims issue, including any subsequentcorrection. Any definitions expressly set forth herein for termscontained in such claims shall govern the meaning of such terms as usedin the claims. Hence, no limitation, element, property, feature,advantage or attribute that is not expressly recited in a claim shouldlimit the scope of such claim in any way. The specification and drawingsare, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than arestrictive sense.

As used herein the terms “include” and “comprise” (and variations ofthose terms, such as “including”, “includes”, “comprising”, “comprises”,“comprised” and the like) are intended to be inclusive and are notintended to exclude further features, components, integers or steps.

It will be understood that the embodiments disclosed and defined in thisspecification extends to all alternative combinations of two or more ofthe individual features mentioned or evident from the text or drawings.All of these different combinations constitute various alternativeaspects of the embodiments.

1. A computer implemented method for displaying a dynamic content itemin a chat interface running on a client device, the method comprising:receiving, from a collaboration platform, a dynamic content itemdescriptor, the dynamic content item descriptor defining the dynamiccontent item and a content provider that is configured to providedynamic data for the dynamic content item, wherein the dynamic contentitem comprises an icon representing the content provider, an attributeportion describing the dynamic data, and a data portion for the dynamicdata; receiving, from the content provider, dynamic data; displaying theicon, the attribute portion, and the data portion comprising the dynamicdata in an area of the chat interface that is distinct from a messagingarea of the chat interface; receiving, from the content provider, newdynamic data; updating the display of the data portion with the newdynamic data.
 2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, furthercomprising sending, to the content provider, a content requestcomprising at least one of a user identifier, a chat room identifier, aclient identifier, and a dynamic content item identifier, and whereinthe dynamic data is received from the content provider in response tothe content request.
 3. The computer implemented method of claim 1,wherein the dynamic content item comprises a static data element, thestatic data element being defined in the dynamic content itemdescriptor.
 4. The computer implemented method of claim 3, wherein thestatic data element is defined by an address from which the static dataelement is retrieved by the client device for display in the dynamiccontent item.
 5. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein thedynamic data comprises aggregate information about an underlyingservice.
 6. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein thedynamic data comprises data defining at least one dynamic data elementfor display in the dynamic content item, the at least one dynamic dataelement being selected from a group comprising: a label; an icon; and alozenge.
 7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein thedynamic content item descriptor defines one or more conditions which areevaluated by the client device to determine whether or not to displaythe dynamic content item.
 8. The computer implemented method of claim 7,wherein the response from the content provider further comprisesmetadata, and wherein the one or more conditions defined by the dynamiccontent item descriptor are evaluated by the client device withreference to the metadata.
 9. The computer implemented method of claim1, further comprising: receiving a dynamic data update, the dynamic dataupdate being initiated and generated by the content provider andcommunicated to the client device via the collaboration platform;updating the dynamic content item to display data from the dynamic dataupdate.
 10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving, from the collaboration platform, a relatedcontent descriptor, the related content descriptor being associated withthe dynamic content item and defining an address from which relatedcontent can be retrieved; detecting activation of a displayed dynamiccontent item; retrieving the related content from the address defined inthe related content descriptor; and displaying the related content inthe chat interface.
 11. An electronic device configured to operate as aclient to a collaboration platform, the computer processing systemcomprising: one or more processors; a display, a communicationsinterface; and one or more non-transitory computer-readable storagemedia storing sequences of instructions which, when executed by the oneor more processors, cause the one or more processors to: display, on thedisplay, a chat interface; receive, via the communications interface, adynamic content item descriptor from the collaboration platform, thedynamic content item descriptor defining the dynamic content item and acontent provider that is configured to provide dynamic data for adynamic content item, wherein the dynamic content item comprises an iconrepresenting the content provider, an attribute portion describing thedynamic data, and a data portion for the dynamic data; receive, via thecommunications interface, dynamic data; display, on the display, theicon, the attribute portion, and the data portion comprising the dynamicdata in an area of the chat interface that is distinct from a messagingarea of the chat interface; receiving, from the content provider, newdynamic data; updating the display of the data portion with the newdynamic data.
 12. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein theinstructions, when executed, cause the one or more processors to send,via the communications interface, a content request to the contentprovider, the content request comprising at least one of a useridentifier, a chat room identifier, a client identifier, and a dynamiccontent item identifier, and wherein the dynamic data is received fromthe content provider in response to the content request.
 13. Theelectronic device of claim 11, wherein the dynamic content itemcomprises a static data element, the static data element being definedin the dynamic content item descriptor.
 14. The electronic device ofclaim 11, wherein the static data element is defined by an address fromwhich the static data element is retrieved by the electronic device fordisplay in the dynamic content item.
 15. The electronic device of claim11, wherein the dynamic data comprises aggregate information about anunderlying service.
 16. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein thedynamic data comprises data defining at least one dynamic data elementfor display in the dynamic content item, the at least one dynamic dataelement being selected from a group comprising: a label; an icon; and alozenge.
 17. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the dynamiccontent item descriptor defines one or more conditions which areevaluated by the electronic device to determine whether or not todisplay the dynamic content item.
 18. The electronic device of claim 17,wherein the response from the content provider further comprisesmetadata, and wherein the one or more conditions defined by the dynamiccontent item descriptor are evaluated by the electronic device withreference to the metadata.
 19. The electronic device of claim 11,wherein when executed, the instructions further cause the one or moreprocessors to: receive, via the communications interface, a dynamic dataupdate, the dynamic data update being initiated and generated by thecontent provider and communicated to the electronic device via thecollaboration platform; and update the dynamic content item to displaydata from the dynamic data update.
 20. The electronic device of claim11, wherein when executed, the instructions further cause the one ormore processors to: receive, via the communications interface, a relatedcontent descriptor from the collaboration platform, the related contentdescriptor being associated with the dynamic content item and definingan address from which related content can be retrieved; detectactivation of a displayed dynamic content item; retrieve, via thecommunications interface, the related content from the address definedin the related content descriptor; and display the related content inthe chat interface.
 21. Non-transient computer readable storagecomprising instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause theprocessor to: display, on a display, a chat interface; receive, via acommunications interface, a dynamic content item descriptor from thecollaboration platform, the dynamic content item descriptor defining acontent provider that is configured to provide dynamic data for adynamic content item, wherein the dynamic content item comprises an iconrepresenting the content provider, an attribute portion describing thedynamic data, and a data portion for the dynamic data; send, via thecommunications interface, a content request to the content provider;receive, via the communications interface, a response from the contentprovider, the response comprising the dynamic data; display, on thedisplay, the icon, the attribute portion, and the data portioncomprising the dynamic data in an area of the chat interface that isdistinct from a messaging area of the chat interface; receiving, fromthe content provider, new dynamic data; updating the display of the dataportion with the new dynamic data.